Reasons to Be Faithful | August 27, 2025

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

Second Timothy we're going to be in the book of second Timothy

again, chapter #2 tonight. Second Timothy chapter #2 Again,

if you don't know, I'm sure most of.

You do, because this is your church, but your pastor's on

vacation. So he asked me to come fill in

for him last Wednesday and tonight.

And so I'm here. This is the last time I'll be

here for a while. I, I just pop in and out every

now and then. That's, that's pretty much all

you get of me. But I'm right down the street.

So, you know, if you ever want to come visit Lighthouse, we're

right over there too. Second Timothy chapter #2 is

where we'll be 1st 13 verses is what we're going to look at

tonight. Lord willing, if you're capable,

please stand in honor of the reading of God's Word and we

will read together. If you'd read along quietly

while I read out loud. Second Timothy chapter #2

Beginning in verse #1 The Bible says, Thou therefore, my Son, be

strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things

that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit

thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus

Christ. No man that woreth entangleth

himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who

hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for

masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive

lawfully. The husbandmen that laboureth

must be first partaker of the fruits.

Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in

all things. Remember that Jesus Christ of

the seed of David was raised from the dead, according to my

Gospel, wherein I suffer trouble as an evil doer even unto bonds.

But the word of God is not bound.

Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they

may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with

eternal glory. It is a faithful saying, for if

we be dead with him, we shall also live with him.

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

If we deny him, he also will deny us.

If we believe not yet he abideth faithful.

He cannot deny himself. Thank you.

You may be seated. One of my pastor's best friends.

This is from before my pastor. One of my dad's pastor.

My dad's best friends from before I was even born.

Was a man named Jim Booberry. He was the pastor.

That's how I said pastor. My father's best friend was also

the First Baptist pastor that my father ever sat under.

He was saved in a Southern gospel Southern Baptist church,

But then this was the first independent Baptist Church and

Jim Booberry was the pastor. That was in Utica, OH.

Utica, OH. If you don't know where it is,

don't worry because I couldn't tell you where it is either.

It's tiny little spit of nothing out in the middle of rural Ohio.

3 to 4000 people. That's about as big as it gets.

Very small town, very rural town.

Utica, OH. For around 25 years, Pastor

Blueberry pastored Utica Baptist Temple in Utica, OH.

He did all the things like going out door to door, sharing the

gospel. You know, starting a having

services Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Sunday

school, starting children's children's church and, and

King's kids and going and visiting those who are sick,

even those who weren't a part of his church.

They would, they would call him because their, their pastors

wouldn't come and he would go and he would pray with them and

he would share the gospel with them, even if they weren't a

member of his church. And you did this for 25 years.

And my father was there with him for, for a period of that time.

They went out and they did all these things together.

They didn't cancel church. My I asked my dad about this and

he was, he made a point of saying we didn't cancel church.

Didn't matter what the snow was like in Ohio, we get a lot of

snow. I we lived in Ohio for a period

of time when I was younger and we got about 8 feet of snow a

year, a lot of snow. There was no virtual services

back then, so the pastor showed. Up and if anybody else showed up

they had services. If not, I guess he preached to

his wife because she was there with him and his son.

But that was for 25 years. That's what he did, 150 year

old. That's how old the church was.

So the church building was old. I remember going and helping my

father. We, he liked to go, we would go

and help Pastor Blueberry from time to time.

And so one Saturday we drove down there and I had the

wonderful privilege of scraping paint.

Off of that. Building it was unpleasant.

I was probably 14, and I definitely did not enjoy it.

And summers in Ohio can be very hot, very humid, kind of like

they can be here. And so it was very hot.

It's very humid. I'm up on a ladder.

I don't like heights. I'm trying to scrape paint, and

that's not going very well. But we did it all day Saturday.

But my father said often times they'd have work days.

And Pastor Blueberry was the only person who showed up.

That was 25 years of that. And so one day my dad asked him,

My dad is known for being blunt. So this is a, a very much

something my dad would ask. He said, why don't you just move

somewhere else? Why are you still the pastor

here? I mean, you're doing everything

right. This is what my father told me.

He told Pastor Blueberry because I wasn't alive at this time.

But he says you're doing everything right.

You, you're going out on visitation, you're preaching is

solid. You're, you're going and, and

talking to people when they're sick and you're starting all

these children's ministries and you're, you're reaching out.

And yet it seems like no one's, no one seems to want to change.

No one. Nothing seems to be happening

here. I mean, the church averaged 10

people for 25 years, 10 people. That's it.

That's. And that included his wife and

his son. So take them away and there's

only eight people or seven people left, Not a lot.

So my dad asked him, why? Why don't you just leave?

I mean, you're doing everything right.

You seem to be doing great. You could move somewhere else.

You could be more successful. You could have bigger buildings,

bigger projects, more, more money in the offering plate,

more things to do, more, more accomplishments under your belt.

And Pastor Blueberry of my father's admission, he said God

called me here. And I'm going to stay here.

He hasn't called me somewhere else.

And so he stayed there for 25 years.

He had to work full time the entire time he was there.

He worked full time at the Postal Service.

He fixed their sorting machines. And he worked there until one

day he was out and shoveling snow and he fell and.

Through the events of that fall, I think he must have hit his

head because he ended up having to be in a nursing home and

dying in that nursing home with very limited cognitive function

left. He didn't remember his wife.

He didn't remember my father 25 years and that's that's how it

ends. So the question that I would

like to pose tonight, and I believe that Paul is trying to

encourage Timothy with is was Pastor Blueberry successful?

Was he successful? What is the measure of success?

And we live in a culture that measures success through

accomplishments, through the things that we we accomplish,

the things that we gain. We measure our success through

finances and financial stability and bank accounts and retirement

funds. Or we measure success through

jobs. You know, if you have a good

job, you get promoted, you're successful in your job.

We measure success through education.

If you had a great education, you had lots of learning

opportunities, you have the chance to grow.

We can measure success that way. We measure success through

influence. The more followers you have on

social media media. Makes you a more successful

person, a more popular person, so influence and relevance and

popularity. We can measure success through

awards and accolades. You get an award, you get a

certain accolade, a recognition. That's the word I'm looking for.

You get recognized for what you've accomplished and.

You feel like you are successful we can even get success in our

culture through relationships. We feel like if we have a

relationship that fulfills us that that makes us successful,

or we can even be very personal in our success.

If I. Feel happy.

If I feel good about what I've done, then I am successful.

We can be like that. None of those things are

necessarily bad. It's not bad to work a job and

make money and get promoted. I've done all of those things

myself. I work full time alongside of

being the assistant pastor and I've been promoted and all those

things. None of those things are bad,

but the question is, are they the standard for success,

especially as Christians? As a Christian, is the standard

for success what we accomplish in this life?

Churches can also begin to measure success, and Christians

can begin to measure success in much the same way that our

cultures does. I was when I was thinking about

this, I was thinking about me as a preacher.

Preachers can measure the success of a sermon by the

response of that sermon. Is that a good measure of

success? Just because a lot of people

come down to the altar and it makes you feel good, like, yeah,

does that really mean it was successful?

What is the measure of success? We can measure our life's worth,

our life's value by what we achieve, why we feel successful

based on what we do and based on how important it is.

At least it is how important it is to our culture.

So the question is, is that the measure of success, especially

for a Christian? Does God another way?

Could we could ask it? Does God reward His people based

on their accomplishments? If He does, then Pastor

Blueberry was not successful because he did not accomplish

very much in terms of the number of people that came to his

church, the growth of his church, the projects that his

church did, the missionaries that his church sent.

None of those things happened. So if the answer is that God

rewards His people based on what they accomplished, then he

failed. So is that the measure of

success? There's always work to be done

around the church. I'm the I want you to just

imagine this with me. I'm, I'm the assistant pastor.

So I do a lot of a lot of different things.

I have a lot of, a lot of. Things that I have a hand in.

I teach junior church, I teach Sunday school class, I teach the

master clubs during the school year.

I run the I. Well, I manage the ITI don't run

it, but I manage the ITI manage the website.

There's a lot of things that I do.

On top of that, I song lead. You saw me song leading tonight.

I lead all the singing. I do all the special music

arranging to be done. I also do go out on visitation

every week. So there's a lot of things that

I'm doing. So again, we're thinking of what

is the measure of success is the measure of success since I do

all of these things, am I more successful than somebody else

who doesn't do all of those things, who does less things Is

is the number of check marks that I can check off?

Yep, did that did that did that did that Does that make me more

successful as a Christian? I, I think you know, the answer

is no. I think we all could agree

that's not the measure of success.

Another way to think about it. I have five children and I'm

responsible, I've been entrusted by God and I'm responsible for

teaching them, for training them in the nurture and admonition of

the Lord, preparing them to be. Adults.

And to be Christian servants and it, it often means doing that

often means giving up on getting things done.

They take a lot of time. There's two of them right here

and the rest are back there in the nursery.

And they take a lot of time. And it often means giving them

the time they need means I don't get done all of the things that

I would like to get done. For example, we mow the grass at

the church when when we're able to get over there, we mow the

grass at the church. And I taught them how to use the

push mower. It takes a long time for them to

push mow the grass. I could push mow the grass a lot

faster than they could, and I could probably do a better job

than they could because they usually.

You know, they miss the corners and I have to go back and clean

it up when they're done. You know what I'm talking about.

They miss stuff. And so it has to go and be

cleaned up and it doesn't look all nice and sharp with the

straight lines like somebody might want it to look like.

And so I could. Do it all myself.

I could get it done faster and it would look better and they

would learn nothing. Say God didn't call me to mow

grass. He didn't call me to mow grass.

He called me to be a dad. He called me, Here's our

keyword. He called me to be a faithful

father, Father, a faithful husband, and a faithful servant.

Faithfulness. We're going to be talking about

faithfulness night. He didn't talk.

He didn't call me to just get things done.

God didn't call Pastor Booberry to Pastor Booberry to big

buildings and large projects and full pews, but he did call him

to Utica. OH, and he was faithful.

And that's what God calls us to tonight.

That is the measure of success. It's not how much you

accomplish. It's not what you do.

It's not how many check boxes you can check off.

It's faithfulness. Paul is encouraging Timothy here

to be faithful and I believe that that's what God wants us to

be encouraged with tonight. This is an encouraging book.

The book of second Timothy was meant to encourage Timothy.

Remember, if we remember from last Wednesday, this is this was

written with Paul in prison under the under the rule of

Emperor Nero and his. Fanaticism, he was crazy and he

was horrible person and he he persecuted Christians greatly.

It was a terrible time to be a Christian in terms of

persecution. That's what's going on in the

world. And so Paul is writing to

Timothy. He knows he's going to die later

at the end of the book, he he says, my life is dumb.

This is it. I'm not getting out of this.

He knows he's going to die and he's writing to Timothy and says

and trying to encourage Timothy. And here he's trying to

encourage him to be faithful. He uses words like.

Be strong, endure hardness and he's trying to encourage him.

Be faithful, Timothy, be faithful.

This is a key thought. This is this is the thought that

I'd like you to get. If you don't get anything else

out of this message, just get this thought.

God's servants are judged and rewarded for their faithfulness

to God's call. God's servants are judged and

rewarded for their faithfulness to God's call.

Remember this Timothy was following God's call.

He was a pastor at this time at the church at Ephesus.

He was, this is what he had been assigned by Paul and he was

doing it faithfully. First Timothy was written to him

before Paul went to prison, and it was written to encourage him

to stand up to the false teachers.

That were trying to infiltrate the church.

Ephesus was not a very nice place.

The Temple of Diana was there with all of the the promiscuity

and, and, and immorality involved in that.

And so it was just. It was a terrible place, and he

was being faithful to God there in Ephesus.

This book was not written to somebody who had the call of God

and rebelled against it. It was written to somebody who

had the call of God and accepted it.

And Paul was trying to encourage him.

So God's servants are judged and rewarded for their faithfulness

to God's call. Timothy.

Be faithful. The first thing he says there

thou therefore that therefore is there because of what was

happened in chapter 1. There, at the end of chapter 1,

he talks about all. Day in Asia be turned away from

me. And then he talks about one man,

Onissa Foris, who stuck with him.

Paul was abandoned. People were scared in the book,

in the 1st chapter he talks about fear.

We talked about that last week. People were scared about what

Nero might do to them if he got caught, he talks about.

Shame in the first path in the 1st chapter, people were

ashamed. Shame is a terrible thing.

I preached a message out on that passage and the title of it was

there is no cause for shame and there's no cause for shame.

But we're not going to preach that tonight.

That would take too long, Timothy the first thing he says,

Thou therefore my son be strong. Timothy will need to be strong.

Pay attention, Timothy, he says, thou therefore my son be strong.

That word strong there he uses the same word or the same word

is used by Luke in Acts 922, where it says this about Paul,

says but Saul before he turned into Paul he was Saul.

Saul increased the more in strength and confounded the Jews

which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ

strength strong. Paul did not confound the Jews

with his biceps. That's not what it's talking

about. Does it say when it says be

strong or his strength? It doesn't mean that he was

ripped. That's not what it's talking

about. The word strong here has to do

with resolve, an inner strength, a determination to say this is

what's right, this is what I'm going to do, and nothing is

going to change this. Be strong.

Be strong. In fact, the Bible says in the

very next verse in Acts that he was so strong in his resolve and

in his knowledge of the Scriptures and improving, that

Christ was their Messiah, that he was so strong in that that

the Jews took counsel to kill him.

He was strong. And Paul is concerned again, the

spirit of fear, the spirit, the power of shame is creeping in.

And the temptation would be to shrink back, to be timid, to not

be bold, to not stand up, to not preach the truth, to not

continue to be faithful. And Paul is trying to encourage

Timothy to be faithful. And so he says, be strong.

Don't buckle under the pressure. The pressure was great.

We talked about Nero already. People were abandoning the

church. You don't know who you can

trust. Paul is concerned, so he says to

Timothy, be strong. But notice what he says after

that. Be strong in the grace that is

in Christ Jesus. In other words, Paul didn't say,

all right, Timothy, it's up to you.

You're just going to have to grit your teeth and bear it.

Just going to have to bear up under it, under the pressure,

under Nero's persecution. You're just going to have to be

strong in your own strength. That's not what he said.

Be strong in the. Grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Be strong. In other words, he say, be

strong in your dependence on Christ.

Be strong in your dependence on Christ.

The idea of the phrase is that there's this continuous

dependence on the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

If he's going to be strong, if he's going to stay faithful,

it's not going to be by his own strength.

Timothy's strength is going to buckle.

Timothy's strength is going to give in.

Temptation is going to get the better of him.

It gets the better of all of us when we try to live the

Christian life in our own strength.

But praise God, we have the grace of Christ Jesus and we

ought to be strong. Our dependence on Christ Jesus

ought to be strong. Being strong.

This, I found this interesting as I thought about that.

Being strong is a command. It's a, it's something that

Timothy has to do. It's a choice, Timothy, I want

you to choose to be strong, but I want you to choose to be

strong in something that was a gift.

It's almost, it's almost, it's weird.

It's a weird phrase. I want you to be strong,

Timothy. I want you to choose to be

strong, but I want you to be strong in the grace that is in

Christ Jesus, which was a gift, something that was given to him.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

The gift is given to all who trust Jesus as their Savior.

When we try to be strong without the grace of Christ Jesus, we

try to bear up under it. All that's going to happen is

we're going to burn ourselves out.

That's what happens because we don't have the strength to

continue this life that he's called us to, to be faithful.

All that's going to happen is we're going to do a bunch of

stuff, but it's going to be a bunch of stuff that we want to

do. It's going to be stuff that we

do in our own strength which will not bring us reward, which

will not bring success. It just brings self fulfillment.

It's selfish. It's about me.

I can do a lot of things through Denwood Strength, but eventually

Denwood Strength is going to give in.

Denwood's strength is going to buckle.

Denwood strength is not strong enough to to continue on.

And Denwood's strength does everything for Denwood.

It doesn't bring me reward. It doesn't bring me success.

So I'm not I'm we can try to be strong with without the grace of

Christ Jesus and all we will do is burn ourselves out.

We're not being faithful to what God has called us.

We'll be faithful to ourselves. We'll we'll set the direction,

we'll set what we want to do and we'll burn ourselves out.

But there's another flip. We could go the other way and we

could say, all right, well, the gift of the grace of Christ

Jesus is, is a gift. So I'm just going to sit down

and I'm just going to wait for him to do everything for me.

There are people who do that. They do they, they think, well,

God's going to take care of these problems.

God's going to take care of this sin.

I don't have to do anything. So they're not being strong.

They haven't made the choice to to practice and to train and to

study. Those are all things that are in

the the book of Second Timothy. Study to show thyself approved

unto God. They don't choose to do those

things. Instead, they just sit back.

And say, well, God's given me the gift of his grace, so I'm

just going to wait for him to solve all these problems for me.

What happens to a car when you let it sit and it does nothing?

It rusts and eventually it doesn't start and it becomes

useless. What happens to a Christian when

they sit and do nothing? They become useless.

They can't be successful. They can't gain the reward

because they are not being faithful.

Be strong, Choose to be strong, Timothy.

You need to train and study and resolve to live with full

confidence in God. That's how we could read that

God will never leave you. God has promised you a future

home in heaven. God has defeated death.

God has saved you. God has called you.

I say it all the time. One of my favorite passages,

Joshua chapter 1 have not. I commanded thee if I told you

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

to go, if I called you, Timothy, I have the ability.

I have the power to see it through.

You just have to be. Strong in the grace that is in

Christ Jesus Timothy. If you think you have some

clever gimmicks, 10 Steps for Church growth, forget that.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

If you think you've got a plan for how to avoid the suffering

and persecution of Nero, forget that.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

God knows how to build his church.

God knows how to protect his people.

God is in control. God makes no mistakes and God

can be trusted. So be strong, be faithful.

He says in verse 2. And the things that thou has

heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful

men who shall be able to teach others also.

You know if you were wondering what God's process for church

growth was. Paul told us right here, he

says. And the things that thou has

heard of me are. Right, so you've got Paul who

taught Timothy. So you've got 2 generations.

Then he says the same commit that of faithful men.

There's another generation who shall be able to teach others.

Also, there's four generations of Christians in one verse.

You want to know how to grow your church?

God's plan is discipleship. Tell people the gospel.

Get them saved, get them plugged into the church, get them

baptized. Disciple them.

God didn't. God doesn't have a plan that

involves activities and doing and and 10 steps.

God's plan is you and me. Discipling people.

Discipling people. God's plan be strong in the

grace that is in Christ Jesus, but we're under attack.

Don't worry about that. You worry about sharing the

gospel. You worry about discipling, you

worry about taking the truths that you got from Paul that that

Paul got from me and you got from Paul and passing them on to

somebody else so that that person can turn around and pass

them on to the next person you know.

This church, that this church is here because of that chain of

events, somebody gave the gospel to your pastor and he got saved.

And he chose to surrender to God and be faithful to God and come

up here and somebody shared the gospel with you and you got

saved. And if you went backwards,

somebody shared the gospel with them and somebody shared the

gospel with them. That's how you got here.

You didn't get here because of a 10 step program or some weird

activity. You got here because of

discipleship, God's plan for church growth in a world.

Where success is measured by accomplishments and

achievements, it would easy to it would be easy to see the fear

and shame he talks about in chapter 1 as being the fear and

shame and the persecution as a failure, as a reason to adapt to

the culture, as a reason to adapt.

That's what the people did at the end of chapter 1 all.

Day in Asia be turned away from me.

Why? Because they were afraid,

Because they were ashamed. Because of what was happening

and they didn't want to stand with Paul, they didn't want to

be associated with Paul because being associated with Paul

probably meant they would be in prison, that they would be

persecuted. Benjamin, stop it.

In a world where success is measured by accomplishments, it

would be easy for Timothy to see this as a failure and to adapt.

I'm saddened to say that many churches and many Christians

have adapted to our culture today because of fear and

because of shame. They're no longer willing to

disciple people. They're no longer willing to

call sin sin. They're no longer willing to

stand on the truths of the Bible beginning in Genesis chapter 1

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

and all the way through to the end.

They change it and they twist it to line up with what the world

thinks and what the world says because of fear, because of

shame. They were not strong, they were

not faithful. And Timothy, you need to be

strong. You need to be faithful.

God's servants are not judged and rewarded for their

achievements. They're judged and rewarded for

their faithfulness. So.

Timothy, you need to be strong. Be strong in the grace that's in

Christ Jesus. Be strong to continue

discipleship. Then he says in verse #3 Thou

therefore endure. Endure hardness.

Timothy, you need to endure. He gives him 3 illustrations, 3

illustrations. I'm going to have to go quick or

I will run out of time. SO3 illustrations.

He gives him the illustration of a soldier, of an athlete, and of

a husbandman, a farmer, a soldier.

He has. He says, thou therefore endure

hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Romans. The Romans were at the time of

Paul, they were in control of much of the world at that time

and they had secured world domination largely through their

military might and through their roads that allowed them to move

their military around. But because of this vast

military force, they also had to have lots of discipline, lots of

training to be able to hold the land that they had taken.

And so they, they, this picture would have been very familiar to

both Timothy and to Paul. Paul was arrested by Roman

centurions a couple of times and they were in prison with Romans.

They were familiar with Roman discipline, Roman soldiers, how

Roman soldiers looked, how they operated.

So this would have been a familiar sight.

For both Timothy and Paul. To maintain this huge empire,

they had to train, they had to discipline, because there could

be no weakening of resolve. There could be no weakening of

skill or strength. There could be no diversions.

They needed to. Follow orders.

They needed to endure the hardness that was commanded of

them. That's what it meant to be a

soldier. A good soldier Imagine if you

will, a soldier today, doesn't it could be a soldier in.

Any in any branch doesn't matter.

But he enlists, Somebody enlists, they enlist in the

military. They go to boot camp, they get

trained, they're ready to be shipped out.

Their commander comes in and says, all right, we're shipping

out tomorrow. And that soldier looks at his

commanders and says, but I've got a date, so I'm not going to

be able to be there. That's not going to go over very

well with the commanding officer.

That's not OK. You're a soldier.

You don't get to just decide, well, I'm not going to go with

the the the unit. I'm not going to be involved.

I'm going to take a step back because I've got other plans.

That's what he's talking about in verse 4 when he says no man

that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.

A Roman centurion, a Roman soldier, had restrictions on how

what he could do, on what he could do with his time.

He didn't have just free time that he could spend doing

whatever he wanted because he was under someone's authority.

And that person told him where to go and what to do.

That's what it meant to enlist and to be a soldier.

He didn't get to decide how he was going to spend his free time

or what kind of occupation he was going to have.

When the commander said go, you went.

And he says here, Timothy, you are now a soldier.

Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, Timothy, you're a

soldier now. Soldiers don't quit because it's

difficult or because it's dangerous.

Soldiers don't tell their commanding officers they're busy

when the order comes down to move.

Timothy, you're a soldier and a soldier is faithful as to his

commander and to the commands he gives.

He's very specific about that. Verse 4 again, no man that worth

entangleth himself with the affairs of this.

If you're in the army, you don't go in and tangle, tangle

yourself up with with all the cares and worries and and

difficulties of this life because he goes on that he may

please him who has chosen him to to be a soldier, who chose

Timothy to be a soldier? Jesus Christ did, He says be a

good soldier of Jesus Christ. You're in the Lord's army now.

Going and tangling yourself up with world's affairs is not

going to please Jesus. That's not what he's looking

for, remember. What is he looking for?

He's looking for faithfulness, for faithfulness, for endurance.

You're a soldier, Timothy, and a soldier is faithful to his

commander and to the commands he gives.

When you got saved, you were enlisted in God's army.

If you're saved tonight, this could be said of you.

If you're saved tonight, then you are a soldier of Jesus

Christ. Tomorrow night I'll be teaching

a men's Bible study at our church.

We're going to be talking about angels, elect angels and fallen

angels and oppression on on Christians and how to overcome

that. And part of my study, I've been

watching some videos on on spiritual warfare.

And I was this one pastor I believe is back in Oklahoma City

where I'm from. He listed 1010 things, 10 signs

to know that you're under attack, that you're involved in

spiritual warfare. And I was expecting, you know,

some, some great thing. And no, he said things like,

well, if you're telling the truth, you're preaching, if

you're going out soul winning, if you're praying.

Those are the kinds of things he said.

You're involved in spiritual warfare just by doing those

things. You're in the battle.

You're in the battle and you must learn, just like Timothy

had to learn to endure, to not be distracted.

No man that woreth entangleth himself.

That was the first illustration. The second illustration is in

verse 5. It says and if a man also strive

for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive

lawfully, strive for the masteries.

The phrase there comes from the Greek word athleo, which is

where we get our word athlete. So it's an athlete.

He's talking about an athlete. Paul is probably picturing the

public games, Another thing that would have been very familiar to

both of them. Ephesus was a city, a major

city. They probably had Olympic Games

there. And there would have been

people, men who came from all around the, the, the, the

countryside, all around the, the nation of Rome and came there to

compete in these games, whether it be wrestling, whether it be

whatever other games they were playing.

They came there for the purpose of competing to to with all

their might and to be victorious.

They would have followed strict diets and they would have

exercised multiple times a day and they would practice to

perfect their art. And the winner of the game was

crowned with a little ring of leaves.

That's what you got. That was that was the sign that

you won in the in the Olympic Games.

Paul doesn't. Draw attention to anything I

just said, he says. You're using the picture of an

athlete, but he specifically. Says if a man also strive for

the masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive

lawfully? He doesn't draw attention to his

workout or the hardness that he has to endure or or the waking

up early or any of the things that you might think of when you

think of an athlete who's working hard to gain the

victory. He draws attention to following

the rules. Following the rules.

Run in a. Race, but you disqualify

yourself because you didn't follow the rules.

See, the The thing is, an athlete would know this.

You can be the best you can practice the most and get up the

earliest and still lose. Not because you didn't come in

first place, but because you broke the rules and you

disqualified yourself. I think a great example, modern

example today would be Lance Armstrong.

He had a lot of medals under his belt and now he has none because

he disqualified himself. He broke the rules and

disqualified himself. When I was a school teacher back

at our church, we have a little private school and I, when I

first came up here, I worked there as a school teacher and I

taught PE and we had a large range of kids.

We had kids that were 5-6 years old all the way up to high

schoolers. So playing PE was difficult

because of course a high schooler is a little more

athletically accomplished than a 5 year old.

And I needed to find ways to make it fair for everyone.

So we would play kickball and I quickly realized that, you know,

somebody 16 would get up there and boot it and it would go

soaring off into the distance and you'd watch these five year

olds. And by the time it hit the

ground, the guy was already back at base.

There was no way. There's nothing they could do.

So I I am modified kickball, much to the 16 year old's

chagrin. I made the bases backwards.

So you ran to 3rd, then second, then first.

You've no idea how many times somebody would run to 1st.

I'm safe. You're on the wrong.

Base, you're out. They didn't like that very much.

I changed the rules so that as soon as the ball was picked up

by someone you were out if you were not on a base.

They didn't like it, but the point was there were new rules

and if you didn't follow the rules, you were disqualified.

You couldn't play the game. You had to be out and go back

and kick again. Paul said that very something

very similar about himself in First Corinthians 927.

He said, But I keep under my body and bring it into

subjection, lest but by any means when I have.

Preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

What was his concern? His concern was he'd be out

doing all the right things, but he would fail to follow the

rules and he would be disqualified.

He would miss out. He would not be successful.

He would fail simply because he did not follow the rules.

You know, we're not running a race, the Christian race, if we

wanted to use Paul's illustration, we're not running

this race to be famous. We're not.

We're not Christians to be famous.

We're running to please Jesus Christ.

That's why we're here. And if we're going to please

Him, we have to follow his rules.

We can't pick and choose which rules we want to follow either.

There's plenty of people today who pick and choose well.

I don't like this one. It's not called.

It doesn't match with our culture today.

So we're going to ignore that one.

We're going to change that one you don't get to do.

That you have to follow the rules.

We have to know the rules. An athlete would study the rules

because he wants to make sure he knows this is what I need to do.

This is how I win. This is how I'm successful.

This is how I can finish the race and win the crown.

There's no shortcuts, there's no cheat codes, there's no ends

justify the means. There's no picking and choosing.

We must be faithful. Faithful to the law, faithful to

the rules, faithful to the the manner of running that Christ

has prescribed for us. The third illustration is a

husbandman. He says in verse #6 the

husbandman. That laboreth must be first

partaker of the fruits. A farmer.

Farmers work a lot. They work outside in the field

all day. Rain, snow, whatever it is,

they're out there working. There's always something to be

done on a farm. I'm not a farmer, but my

father-in-law is a farmer. I may have told you guys this

story before, but it's a great story.

So I'll tell you again. When before I married my wife, I

went, I, we lived in Oklahoma City.

We went to Heartland Baptist Bible College together there.

And so one of our breaks, I went home with her to visit with her

family and, and see her dad. This is the first time I'd ever

met him and he thought it would be a great idea for me to go out

and work on the farm with him. Now he he had a farm, but he

worked for a farmer and he was a maintenance guy.

So a lot of what he did was working on these massive

sprinklers, like half mile long of these huge sprinklers pumping

out hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.

I'd never seen anything like it. And so I go out there and he's

like, I'm pretty sure he planned this.

He decided that this was a great day to replace the sprinkler

heads. On the sprinklers.

Long sprinkler. And so he's sitting in this

little four Wheeler just coasting along and I'm walking

along and I'm trying to unscrew these things and they're all

calcified so they don't want to come off.

And I'm trying to RIP these things off and it's not working

out. And then he gets off and he just

goes pink and pink and it makes me look like a fool.

And you can see I'm not hurt by it at all.

But farmers work hard. And he did that every day for

many years. They work hard.

It takes a lot of work. And back then it would have

taken even more work. Nowadays they've got fancy

tractors that do everything for you.

Back then, you, you planted by your, you planted by hand.

You watered. If you had to water, you watered

it by hand. You had to go pick it by hand.

You had to bail it by hand. Everything was done with

manpower. That was it.

That's all you had. The labor had to come before

there was a harvest, he says. The husbandman that laboreth the

labor comes first. There is no harvest without

labor, without work. Long hours must be spent tilling

the soil, planting the soil, wedding the soil.

And the work is never done. There's always another field to

plow, another field to prepare and plant, another garden to

fertilize and weed, another field that needs protection from

pests, fences that need to be mended.

And then the harvest comes and you start it all over again.

Farmer. Long, Tedious.

But if he was going to see the reward, the husband and the

laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.

There will be no harvest without the labor.

He must be faithful to the labor if he wants a harvest.

You know, the work God called Timothy to.

Was. Long and tedious and.

Often times very uncomfortable. We don't know a whole lot about

everything that happened there in Ephesus with Timothy.

We have first Timothy, which tells us about some nasty false

teaching that was trying to infiltrate the church.

We have knowledge about Ephesus from history and what kind of

place it was and about what was going on at that time with Nero

and what we know. Again, Ephesus was not a great

place, and Timothy had a long. Hard road to hoe, you know.

A parent's work is never done either if you've ever had

children. My children are young, my dad

tells me all the time and I'm 34.

He says I'm still a dad. It never stops.

Parents, work is never done and sometimes it's a long hard Rd.,

a long bit of work to raise your child and the nurture and

admonition of the Lord. And sometimes you wish you could

just sleep in. You wish you could just take a

break. You wish.

It could just be. Peaceful.

But you can't. You can't stop.

You have to be faithful. If you want to reap the reward,

you have to work. There's always.

Someone else who's needing prayer.

We had a prayer meeting tonight. There was only a couple prayer

requests. Praise the Lord, God's been

good. But there's always somebody who

needs prayer. There's always another prayer

request that could be prayed for.

There's always another person who's sick, another person who's

lost, another person that needs to get saved, another person

that needs to come back to the church, another person that

needs to repent. There's always work to be done.

It's hard. There's always a person who

needs a kind word and needs the gospel.

If we are to see the reward of our labor, we must be faithful

to the work. Faithfulness, He says in verse

#7 consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in

all things. Consider what I say.

Consider. What it means to be a good

soldier, A soldier who endures hardest and isn't distracted.

There are many good things that can distract Christians, but

they're not. And they're not all bad.

Some of them are even necessary. But it didn't Jesus say, seek ye

first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these

things shall be added unto you. How often do we find ourselves

seeking those other things and we've given up the first thing

that we ought to be seeking? We get distracted.

Many Christians today are soldiers whose focus is torn,

parents and spouses who are not faithful to the responsibility

God has given churches, and Christians who are not faithful

to the gospel God has commissioned us with.

Be faithful, there will be no victory.

Without focus, consider what it means to strive for the

masteries. If an athlete can bring his body

into subjection, Timothy, you can too.

If he can do it just to win a little circle of leaves.

You're trying to win a crown. You're trying to win the Lord

looking at you and say well done, my good and faithful

service. If he can bring his body in

subjection for a ringlet of leaves.

You can do it too, Timothy. Consider what it means to strive

for the masteries. Later in the book, Paul tells

Timothy, study to show thyself approved unto God.

Be faithful to the commands of God because you can do

everything right, but you can do it in your own strength.

You can do it without following the rules.

You can do it without the way and in the manner that in a

manner that God did not prescribe.

You can get a big church. You could have a full church

tonight if you just gave up on the Bible, had some rock music,

changed the lighting, nobody in suits, we could fill this place

up. You'd have success, but you

wouldn't be faithful. You wouldn't be the athlete who

followed the rules. You would disqualify yourself

from the reward of your labor. To Timothy, consider what it

means to be a husbandman, that labor to be diligent, patient,

getting every up every day, doing the same things over and

over and over again. Not giving up because you know

that eventually, somewhere, maybe even after you're long

dead. There will be a reward.

There will be a harvest to reap. God will open the books and he

will. He will make wrong or make right

that which was wrong, and He will reward His servants for

their faithfulness. Nothing for God will be

accomplished in this life without effort and sometimes

hardship. We need to be faithful like a

soldier, faithful like an athlete.

Follow the rules, follow the purpose.

Faithful to the work, confident of the harvest.

He was trying to encourage him there.

Be faithful, He tells him to consider what I say, go back and

just think about it. There are so many.

Ways that that. Those 3 verses, those 3

examples, illustrations could be applied.

A soldier, an athlete and a farmer.

And we don't have time to go into any more than what we

already have. Next he gives him 2 examples.

Gives them the example of Jesus Christ.

Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised

from the dead. Jesus endured hardness.

Jesus was a good soldier. He was sent here by God the

Father to die on the cross for the sins of all mankind.

That was His purpose. That was why He came.

He didn't allow himself to get distracted by other things, by

the politics and by the the the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

He said of himself, I don't even have a place to lay my head.

The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

He endured hardness. He disciplined Himself when it

came, when it came time to suffer.

It says that when he prayed, He sweat drops of blood.

He endured hardness as a good soldier.

He labored patiently in the fields.

He said they were ripe under harvest, and he was there so

that that harvest could be brought in.

That's what he came to do. So he gives the example of

Jesus, who he says he was of the seed of David, and he was raised

from the dead, according to my gospel.

Then he gives his health himself as an example, wherein I suffer

trouble as an evil doer, even under bonds, But the word of God

is not bound. Therefore I endure all things

for the elect's sake, that they may obtain the salvation which

is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Paul's in prison. Paul is suffering.

But Paul is also enduring, and he says he may be bound.

I thought this was great. Here he is.

He's in prison. He's bound.

I'm bound for the gospel. But the word of God is not

bound. The word of God is not bound.

You know, there have been a lot of people down through the years

who have tried to silence God's word, stamp it out.

They burned it. They made it illegal.

They put it into languages so no one else could read it but the

papacy. They have done everything they

could to keep it out of people's hands.

When people translated it into into the language, the original,

the people who began to translate it into English for

the common man, they persecuted them.

They killed them. They burned them at the stake.

Silencing God's Word. God's word is not silenced.

It is not bound. Yeah, I'm in prison, Paul said.

But Timothy, you're still out there.

You're still discipling, you're still preaching, you're still

teaching. I can endure, Timothy.

So can you. Be faithful if I must endure for

God's word to move forward. This is Paul.

Say, this is what he's saying here.

If I have to endure for God's word to move forward, I will as

a good soldier, he says. Therefore I endure all things

for the elect's sake that they may obtain.

They also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with

eternal glory. I can win the prize and not be

disqualified. I can endure.

I can be faithful, patient. So he gives them these two

examples. He's trying to encourage him to

be. Faithful, so he's so far he's

given him these three illustrations of enduring of

being faithful. He's given in these two

examples, Jesus and himself. And then he gives him this last

thought, God's assurance, a reason to be faithful.

God's assurance, he says in verse 11, it is a faithful

saying. There are five faithful and true

sayings inside the three prison epistles.

It's worth studying it someday if you're ever interested.

We are not going to look at them tonight, but there are five of

them, faithful and true sayings. This is one of them.

It is a faithful saying. For if we be dead with him, we

shall also live with him. If you're saved this evening,

then when Jesus died, you died. When Jesus rose from the dead,

you rose from the dead. When we baptize people, what do

we say? I baptize you in the name of the

Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, buried with him in

the likeness of his death, and. Raised to walk in newness of

life. Thus the baptism doesn't save

you. It doesn't make you more saved.

It's a picture of what actually happened when you got saved.

You died and you were brought back.

If we, if it is a faithful saying, if we be dead with him,

we shall also live with Him. Physical death is of no concern

to a Christian. It's nothing.

So be faithful. Then he says in verse 12, if we

suffer, we shall also reign with him.

If we deny him, he also will deny.

Us, There's this contrast, suffering and denying.

Those who are strong in the context, those who are strong,

those who endure hardness, those who are faithful will one day be

rewarded. Those who are faithful, if we

suffer, we shall also reign with Him.

I mentioned this already, but there's coming a day at the

Great White Throne. I'm sorry, not the Great White

Throne, but the Bema seat where Christians will be judged, the

books will be open and we our name will be in the Lamb's book

of life. So we're going to heaven.

That's what the next verse is going to teach us.

Verse 13. God isn't going to kick us out

no matter what we do, if we're. Saved.

We're going, but there's going to be a reckoning.

What did you do with the responsibilities I gave you in

this life? What did you do with the

opportunities I gave you in this life?

Were you faithful to the calling I had or did you waste it,

piddle it, chasing after the things that you wanted?

He's not saying that we'll lose our salvation.

The next verse again makes it very clear, but he's saying we

will be judged and we will be rewarded based on our

faithfulness. The last thought, if we believe

not yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself if we

believe not. The phrase there believe not is

not talking about losing salvation.

In the context, it can't mean that it's talking about

unfaithfulness, Unfaithfulness if we believe not, if we, if we

are unfaithful to him, if he has given us opportunities, he's

called us, he's saved us, he's given us responsibilities, he's

given us the opportunities to do what he's called us to do.

And we are unfaithful to those we set back from them because of

fear, because of shame. He says he abideth faithful.

He cannot deny himself. We are all unfaithful.

From time to time, all of us, myself included, there have been

times where we knew God wanted us to do something and we chose

not to. We were unfaithful to Him.

We were not strong and enduring. We were not like the athlete who

followed the rules. We were not like the husbandman

who went out there and did the work because it was the work

that needed to be done. We were unfaithful because of

sin or because of weak flesh or the influence of the world and

of the spirit of fear and the power of shame.

We. All.

Fail to be strong and to endure hardness.

But no matter how much we may disappoint our Lord, he abideth

faithful. He abideth faithful with God's

assurance of life, God's assurance of reward, and God's

assurance of His faithfulness. Timothy, you can be faithful.

You can be strong, You can endure hardness.

God has not called you tonight to grit your teeth, bear it,

bear up under it in your own strength.

He's called you. He's given you His grace.

He wants you to live tonight with full confidence that His

grace will carry you through. Trust it.

Be strong in it. Oh, there's so many great

thoughts. So we could go down with that.

I have one of my favorites. So taste and see that the Lord

is good. I think I talked about it last

week. Just try it out.

That's what he's saying. Taste and see that God is good.

God is pleased when His soldiers are ready to answer His call,

when they're not distracted. There will be no victory in your

life, no reward, no success without focus, without enduring

hardness and not being entangled in this world.

God is pleased when we know the rules.

And when we follow the rules, when we don't take shortcuts or

try to cherry pick what we want, but we read the Bible, we study

the Bible. Study to show thyself approved

unto God. The workmen that needeth not to

be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

God is pleased and we're diligent and faithful day in and

day out to the harvest, to the work that He's called us to.

Because there will be no harvest without the work.

Whatever God has called you to tonight, Paul is encouraging you

to be faithful. You're a husband, you're a wife,

you're a father, you're a mother.

You, you teach a Sunday school class, you work in the nursery,

you work back there in the sound booth.

You're a soul winner, you're a Co worker, you're a friend.

You give, you pray. God is calling you to be

faithful. Faithful.

One day in heaven we will be rewarded not for what we

accomplished, not for how much we did, but for how we were

faithful, what God called us to do.

It may seem like a small thing, may seem like it's nobody

notices. You come and you clean the

bathroom and nobody notices. God notices if that's what he's

called you to do. Be faithful, Be faithful.

It might be a big thing and you think I don't know how I can do

it. You can do it.

Be faithful. It might be easy.

It might be hard, but tonight I'd like to encourage you.

The measure of success is faithfulness.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless you as you

grow in His Word.