The Unpopularity of Preaching • 2 Timothy 4:1-8

Let's get into the text.

We got two more weeks in 2 Timothy.

So, what we do, if you're new here at Sacred Mission, is by and large, we preach verse by verse through books of the Bible because we believe that the whole council of God is for the purpose of maturing his people into Christlieness.

And so we have two more weeks in 2 Timothy.

We're closing out in the last chapter, one of the last two sermons this morning.

And here's what I want to kind of pose for us today.

If you had labored alongside someone, you cared for them, loved them, raised them up, did gospel mission with them, been through hard times and good times, and you're in your final moments of life.

What is going to be your last message to them?

That's where we find ourselves here in the closing of this final letter that Paul ever puts his hand to the parchment to write.

He's in a prison cell in Rome.

And he is soberly aware of the fate that lies ahead of him.

And he's working to ensure that he imparts this closing message to young Timothy.

And he wants to encourage him.

He wants to encourage him to continue the mission of gospel work that he himself has been laboring in for more than 30 years now.

You see, death is waiting just days before him.

It's believed historically that when he closed out this letter just days later, he is executed, beheaded because of his preaching of the gospel.

But even in the shadow of death, Paul knows something.

He knows that there is still work to be done.

And so he doesn't sit there on that cold, wet floor in apathy and despair.

He picks up the quill and he begins writing Timothy.

There's work still to be done.

And the greater, faithful work of gospel mission is far from finished.

And so there's this mantle to transfer, right?

There's this calling to continue, there's this mission to fulfill.

And here in the passage, Paul is ensuring that Timothy hears and understands the duty that's being laid upon him with this emphatic clarity.

And preeminent in his responsibility is this simple but profound call to preach the word.

Preach the word.

Verse one.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

Look at the simplicity of the charge.

It is three simple words preach the word.

But it comes after this gravity of the grandeur and majesty of who God is and the glory of his son in the fulfillment of his kingdom, right?

Paul doesn't just flippantly use this strong statement as this normatively, right?

He doesn't draw out of his back pocket the trump card of Christ Jesus who reigns on for you.

Hey, you got to do something for me, Timothy, right?

Here's this gravitas of who Jesus is and his glory.

No.

He wants Timothy here in this moment to understand what he's saying.

Because usually what Paul does is he actually draws on his own office and authority as an apostle of Jesus to establish the significance of such a matter.

Throughout his letters, we'll see Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, and then he goes on to explain what he's requesting or seeking out of the audience of whom he's writing to.

But he chooses in this moment to draw on a power and authority that is beyond himself, so that he might grab Timothy's undivided attention.

And here the emphasis of the charge, right?

It's not on God generically, right?

But it is on the coming of Jesus and the fullness of his kingdom, where he will judge the soul of every man throughout all of human history.

Timothy, in light of this coming reality, preach the word.

You see, the charge is fixed upon that.

This coming day, this anticipated event, and its seriousness, right?

Its weightiness and urgency exists in light of it.

Because Jesus is coming again to judge mankind, Timothy must be unwaveringly committed to one preeminent work: preach the word.

You see, if we try to understand these two things in light of one another, the coming of Jesus with his judgments and the preaching of the word, what we're able to actually do is see the gospel rightly.

Because the gospel is in its nature the declaration of the good news of God's judgment being placed upon Christ his Son instead of us who deserve it.

You see, the gospel is truly a passing of judgment, passing over and removing guilt and shame for all who receive this message by faith through grace.

But yet on the other side of this, it is a passing on to others by applying the full consequence of the guilt and shame of their own sin for all who willfully reject it.

The gospel is a judgment decree.

In Jesus' first coming, he did not come to pass condemnation or judgment onto others.

This is what we see in John 3, John 3.16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, whoever believes in him not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3, 70, you got to keep reading through the verse, right?

But I did not come to condemn.

You stand condemned already because you have not received the message of my kingdom.

Right?

Christ didn't come to condemn in his first coming, but he came to bear upon himself on the cross the condemnation we so deserve for all who are his.

But in his second coming, Jesus passes condemnation and judgment upon all who have rejected the good news of the gospel of his grace.

And so Timothy, he's got to be urgent in mission here.

He's got to be urgent in mission as he lives in this present awareness of that day drawing near, right?

And we struggle with this as believers in Christ.

So often are moments and days and weeks and months, they're not formed and shaped or influenced by this coming, present reality.

Christ is coming back in the fullness of his glory with all authority and power and dominion to judge.

We just go on scrolling through social media and binge watching Netflix, and we're not actually shaped and formed by this coming reality.

It doesn't motivate us to love more deeply or to be more passionate in our pleaing, that they would repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus.

You see, we're invited to live in that.

That Christ has come and he is surely coming again.

And so Paul continues to be this gospel coach for Timothy, and he coaches him in this way.

He says, Be ready, Timothy.

It's this call to never lose this sense of urgency.

It reminds me of the Exodus story.

But what was happening in this moment?

God was sending the destroyer upon Egypt, who was going to take the life of the firstborn sons of Egypt.

And though the Israelite people were called to slaughter the lamb and put its blood on its doorpost, that the destroyer might pass its judgment over them.

We see this gospel tie, right?

What were they called to do?

Put your sandals on your feet, tie the rope around your waist, get your staff in your hand, because when the destroyer comes, when the moment hits, you've got to be ready.

You've got to be ready.

And this is what we're called to, even as this people, the sense of urgency and readiness, because all faithful preaching communicates a sense of the urgent importance of what is being preached.

And when is Timothy supposed to be ready?

When should we be ready?

At all times.

At all times.

Paul says it in this way to be ready in season and out of season.

And here's what he's communicating is this it's an obligation to duty, whether it seems to be convenient for us or not.

Right?

This in-season, out of season, he's actually speaking to convenience and the absence of it in convenience.

And his appeal seems to be against this laziness and this apathy that can so often subdue us as messengers of the gospel.

Because if there's gospel work to be done, we have to be ready at all times to put our hand to the plow to share its hope with others.

Because if we're honest with ourselves, to share the gospel with other people is rarely ever perceived as convenient.

It's rarely ever seen as convenient.

We're always going to be able to make some excuse for why it wasn't the right moment, why this isn't the right time, why we should just hold back and keep our mouths shut for a little bit longer, right?

There's always, though, gospel work to be done.

And it is fundamentally inconvenient to call people to faith in Jesus and from repentance of their sin.

That's a very inconvenient thing to do.

It's easier to ask them about the weather.

But a faithful gospel worker is ready.

They're ready no matter the timing or the moment.

Because they're driven by an urgency of mission that is fueled by a sincere and genuine love for other people.

Yet when we do proclaim the gospel, we have to be aware of the intent and purpose that best fits the very time and moment that we find ourselves in.

This is what Paul helps coach Timothy in even further.

He lays out these three ways in which the gospel ought to be proclaimed to others.

And it's situational.

It depends on where you find yourself and who you find yourself before.

But these three ways help us understand this one truth.

We talk about this a lot at sacred mission.

I have a responsibility.

Your elders have a responsibility to what we call exegete the text, meaning we're supposed to go to the scriptures and pull out of it what it truly says rather than read into it our own thoughts and opinions.

But not only do we have to exegete the text, we have to exegete our context because we are speaking to a particular people, right?

If you're gonna preach the gospel to someone in urban downtown Cincinnati, I can tell you with full confidence, you need to understand how to preach it and deliver it in such a way as it relates and understands and they're able to understand it.

And it's radically different than the way you would hear in the Burbs.

One of the ways he says that we ought to do this is we ought to reprove.

What he means by this is at times the gospel must be proclaimed with the purposeful aim of convincing others of its message.

The gospel speaks to different men in different situations.

So as we live on mission, what we have to do is remember this and be skillful in our use of it.

Because to be a people on mission means that we don't just share the gospel generally, right?

We're not a street corner preacher who just declares this generic gospel in such a sense.

I'm not downplaying that fully, I'm not dismissing that as unprofitable, but but let me show you what I believe the scriptures call us to normatively.

It's that we are to speak the gospel and share it to specific people who wrestle with specific doubts, who struggle with specific sins, and who adore specific idols.

They need the gospel specifically told to them in a way that works to convince them that Jesus is infinitely better, trustworthy, and more glorious than these other things they're putting their hope in.

The second way we're to preach the gospel is to rebuke.

I want you to hear this clearly.

As much as the gospel is about a savior, it is also about the sin that demanded we need saving.

You see, there is no real gospel without addressing the reality of our sin.

And so we have to be able and willing to address the particular sin in the lives of others.

And we need to be encouraged this morning to not cower from confronting sin and the moral failure of others around us.

But also, we don't try to smother it with cheap grace and downplay its significance in their lives.

No, what we have to do is what the apostle Paul has already instructed us to do in this very letter.

He said, a faithful gospel worker is one patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

And we talked about this.

It means that we confront with compassion.

We have a biblical compassion for others who are dying in their sin, who are ensnared by the enemy, who need to be brought out of the intoxication of their old ways into the hope of the revelation of Christ Himself.

And so what do we do?

We have compassion on them, but we confront them, but we're willing to endure and suffer much evil.

We're willing to be patient with them and walk alongside of them, right?

We confront with compassion.

Thirdly, he says, exhort.

Exhort.

Listen, our culture is flooded with people who are absolutely overwhelmed by anxiousness and fear.

And they need to be encouraged in the promises and hope of the gospel because the gospel truly is good news of great joy.

And that's not something that we just need to proclaim out of our mouths but not have tangible and evident in our own life.

If the gospel is good news of great joy, how is it seen and expressed and observed?

And how do other people in your life desire to have what's missing within them, right?

Do they see the joy that only Jesus in his salvation brings to the hearts of his people?

In a world that's so plagued by despair, in a world that conditions our heart to be heavy with worry, we need to be ready to share the confident assurance of Jesus' peace, his comfort, his gladness, when we receive by faith his gospel, and when we enjoy-filled obedience, live out his commands for us.

You see, the gospel, it does all of this.

And how it might be proper and relevant to preach the word.

Yet we must see that our efforts in preaching, they actually are qualified here in the text.

And Paul uses these qualifications with complete patience in teaching.

So here's what I want to submit to you this morning, right?

The primary way of which we ought to preach the word, the primary way, is through relationship.

It's inside of the relationships that we have with others because the gospel is inherently relational.

It is about reconciling a rebellious and wandering people back into relationship with their Maker.

And so the notion comes first by the very diversity of methods to preach the word that we just worked through.

If we're gonna be able to understand if we need to reprove or rebuke or exhort, we will need to some degree to know the person we're speaking to.

Our knowledge of them will allow us to rightly discern how they need to hear the word in that moment, in this time.

But let's take notice of these other qualifiers.

First, our preaching of the word must be with all patience.

With all patience.

Here's what I want us to understand.

We are supposed to live in this sobriety of missional urgency, but the work is not rushed.

You ever met someone like that who rushes the work, who's sloppy in the outcome, who tries to force outcomes in ways that aren't natural or proper for the circumstance, right?

They try to rush the work.

We're supposed to be urgent in mission, but the work's not rushed.

Because what we're ultimately doing is we're trusting in God to only do what God can do.

The work isn't rushed, it's relational.

We can't cause them to believe.

We make really bad holy spirits.

We've said this all the time from the pulpit, right?

Like, I am a horrible Holy Spirit to other people.

Trying to make them repent, trying to change them, trying to cause them to believe.

Right?

I frustrate the process more than I cause it to flourish.

So we can't cause them to believe, nor can we alone cause them to mature in their faith.

That work belongs to the spirit.

What we are called to do is to patiently endure tilling the ground, sowing the seed, watering the soil, and allow for the Lord to do what only He can do in the hearts of men.

And so this patience, and it demands relationship.

Because the majority of the time when you preach the word to someone in a relationship with, they're not going to receive it on the first attempt.

But we are long-suffering with them, trusting in Jesus to move in their hearts.

Next to what we see is the call for all teaching.

I think this draws us to the very heart of the Great Commission.

Right?

We're supposed to make disciples, not just converts.

For too long in the church, we we worried more about closing our eyes and bowing our heads and raising the hand after this high-pressure sales pitch from some Baptist youth camp.

And we've made a lot of converts.

But we have failed over the last several decades to make true disciples within the church.

And so the preaching of the word, it does not end with conversion.

It carries the convert through to a maturity in the faith.

It does the good, patient, laborious work of teaching all that the word reveals to make them a disciple.

That's what we're called to do.

To make disciples of Jesus.

You see, I believe the scriptures call us to preach the word with all patience and teaching in the context of relationship so that we might make immature disciples.

That's the church's mission.

And here's the truth the disciples that we are working to make, they're going to need desperately a maturity in the word to be able to withstand the cultural moment that they find themselves in.

Because the urgency and preeminence of preaching, it persists because among the culture, there will remain the unpopularity of.

Preaching the word.

This is where Paul goes next.

The unpopularity of preaching the word.

Verse 3.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.

Now, this coming time is a present reality.

Paul does this a lot in his letters.

He speaks in such a way as if it was future or something that we were waiting for, this kind of eschatological end times, this coming, but it actually is a present moment.

And so when Paul is calling Timothy to be aware of this time that is coming, it is a time that is now.

And for us, even today, this time is evidently here.

We are immersed in a culture that is unable to endure truth.

And look at the attempts that we will make.

Look at how desperately we strive to find any voice that we might possibly be able to find that simply does one thing.

Tell us what we want to hear, no matter if it's true or not.

And so we will embrace irrationality.

We will embrace deception.

We will embrace anything that appeases our desires.

You see, it's a presence of difficult and dark days where people are unable to bear truth.

It's where the word of life seems worse than death to them.

Here, the language of sound teaching, it literally means healthy instruction.

It means healthy instruction.

It means a way of life that cultivates our ultimate flourishing.

This culture is a culture of death everywhere you look.

It is a culture of death in the womb as we murder unborn human beings.

It is a culture of death as we seek to destroy the family of which God established for us as his image bearers.

It is a culture of death as we promote the destruction of a society, all for the simple reason we don't want to hear the truth.

You see, we've exchanged our flourishing for floundering because we've rejected the word of life.

Because ultimately we're unable to bear its message.

It doesn't satisfy what we really want.

And so, unable to hear the word, and having condemned its preaching as unpopular, what have we done in response?

Well, many of us, our ears itch for popular opinion.

Verse 3, continuing on.

But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

One thing we would do well to understand about the human heart is that our propensity is not to receive the gospel message.

Our propensity is to recreate it so that it becomes something we desire.

We are not prone to receive the truth of the gospel.

Our propensity in our fallen human heart is to recreate it into something we really want.

You see, we desire to re-re-create the gospel into the message that our itching ears long to hear, and we will exhaust every effort to collect a mass of influencers and impastors, podcast hosts or content creators who affirm us in what we long to hear and insist must be true.

The recreation of the gospel message is possibly the greatest threat that we face in the church.

Because our hearts refuse to receive it as it is.

We cannot bear it, we're unable to endure it.

And so we work to recreate it and then we gather teachers to suit our own passions.

Look at the world of influencers, look at the world of content creators.

Any fool can open an account and start declaring what they believe is true.

And what we're seeing all around us is a people who get lost in the noise and they go to and fro from influencer to influencer, seeking out not truth.

But I would submit they're ultimately seeking out the voice who affirms them in what they desire to hear.

And the end result is that we become more and more drawn away into the message that we want to hear, that we wander off into extravagant myths, speculations, irrationalities, conspiracies that we never even imagined that we'd be carried off into.

And here's what I think is important for us to see is that the cultural unpopularity of preaching the word feeds the insatiable pursuit of popular opinion.

We love new ideas.

We love new teaching.

We love new revelation.

We love novelty.

And that hunger cannot be satisfied without submitting ourselves fully to the Lordship of Christ in the revelation of his word for us.

It's a popular opinion that is driven more by what we want to hear than what we need to hear.

And the sad reality is that we will find no shortage of messengers who will scratch the itch for us.

But maybe you're not the one to blame for recreating the gospel.

Maybe you're not the one with itchy ears this morning, but maybe you are the one guilty of being silent, of drawing back and of cowarding away because of preaching's growing unpopularity.

You see, many of us, we fear the unpopularity of the word.

Verse 5.

But as for you, always be sober-minded, enduring suffering.

Do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

I love what Paul does.

We've talked about this in the letter.

He's this gospel coach for Timothy.

And here he gives this counter, counter-cultural way to live.

Because he knows something.

He knows that the growing hostility in the culture will cause this young preacher's heart to grow weary and timid.

Right?

And this is what we experience.

The more hostility rises within culture against the preaching of the word, against the gospel of Jesus, the more our mouths start to shut and be quiet.

Our tongues no longer speak.

We are more content in the safety of not stirring the pot.

And so we retreat.

We cower.

But Paul wants to encourage Timothy to be strong and courageous, to persevere, to live counterculturally.

He knows that along with the rise of popular opinion, will rise this deceptive desire to be accepted, to fit in, to not face the repercussions of being unpopular, because here's the truth the message of the gospel becomes unprofitable to our social equity, period.

And the church wants desperately to try and make the world like them.

And so they do everything they can to be cool and be trendy.

They omit what they will speak about.

They will not talk or breach certain subjects in the scriptures, all for this single effort that we might be liked by a world who is prone to never like you.

And we wonder what's happened to the church in America.

We've been more concerned about our popularity in light of the reality of the unpopularity of preaching.

So Paul lays out a way for us to live counter-culturally and to withstand the challenges that we will inevitably face.

And the first one he says is this, Timothy, be sober-minded.

Be sober-minded.

Here's what he's saying.

Timothy, don't be intoxicated by novel ideas.

The latest trending philosophy, the current virtue that our society demands you signal toward.

Don't be caught up in that, Timothy.

Be sober-minded.

Don't allow yourself to swerve out of beliefs and convictions and worldviews like a drunk man attempting to walk a straight line in a sobriety test.

Because steadiness is the standard of sobriety.

And we've committed to that.

And we strive for that here in this church.

Here's what we know the storm of culture is going to continue to rise.

And these tidal waves are going to come from every side, trying to sweep you out into that cultural moment.

Whatever's trending right now, whatever's novel today, the tides of culture is going to try and sweep you into it.

And we need something.

We need a strong anchor to support us and keep us steady.

And sacred missions determined to have this pulpit be that anchor that we so need.

And how are we going to do it?

We're going to preach the word.

We're not going to preach on the hot topic of culture.

We're not going to allow ourselves to be swept out into the tide of what's popular in the moment.

We're going to open the text.

We're going to preach the word, and we're going to establish this pulpit as an anchor in the storm.

Because too many churches, pulpits are not anchors, they're just bobbers that go back and forth in the tides of the storm, and their people are lost at sea.

We want to be sober-minded because steadiness is the standard of sobriety.

Do you remain steady in your beliefs?

Are you steadfast in your convictions?

Do you steady your path of life by the word of life itself?

Next, he says, Timothy, endure suffering.

Although people will not listen to sound teaching, we must persist in teaching it.

And in that we must be prepared to endure suffering on account of the truth.

We must refuse to compromise, even though the temptation to do so will seem unbearable and very convenient to just bow out and keep quiet at times.

Because whenever biblical truth becomes unpopular, its messengers are greatly tempted to be silent about the very aspects which bring its greatest offense.

This is why the popular preacher in our society today only preaches on love and doesn't preach on judgment.

They only preach on grace, but yet they refuse to preach on repentance.

They only talk about your brokenness as if you were simply a victim.

They do not preach on your sin and stiff-necked rebellion against God.

They preach on doing better, trying harder instead of submitting your life to the lordship of Jesus the King.

Lastly, he says, Paul to Timothy, if you're going to live counterculturally, you need to do the work of an evangelist.

We are to make the preaching of the good news of the gospel our life's work.

You see, the people around us, they don't desire to hear it.

And they're going to collect a multitude of voices, declaring to them everything but the hope of Jesus' saving grace.

So we have to commit our lives to be a voice that stands apart, a voice that proclaims a peculiar message that seems to go against what everyone else is saying.

But the irony of it all is we are preaching the good and faithful message of hope.

You see, the work of the evangelist is the work of the word, delivering to the people not what they want to hear, but what they desperately need to hear.

So we cannot fear the unpopularity of the word.

It alone is the source of life to a dying world.

It is the healing remedy to a sin sick people.

We must strive to fulfill the ministry.

If you are in Christ, you are not just called into relationship with him, but you are called into a co-laboring in the work he's doing in the world.

You have a ministry.

You have something to fulfill in your life.

This is a part of what's at stake.

If you and I cower back in silence, we will not fulfill what God has called us to as his people.

We've been called to a ministry, and we must be faithful to labor in completing it.

No matter the cost, no matter the rejection, you and I have to be persevering in the work until it's accomplished.

Because remember, there's an urgency to the mission.

Because the message of the gospel itself, it's established upon this one reality.

The word has come and is coming again.

The word has come and is coming again.

As we close out this passage this morning, 6 through 8, what we see is this.

We see this weary and tired apostle who's sitting in a prison cell, but he's not sitting there in despair.

He has so much confidence that he has fulfilled the ministry that was given to him.

You see, the good deposit of the treasure of the gospel, it has been kept.

And not only kept, but he endeavored to make every man know of its beauty and its worth.

His life is now setting like the sun.

His departure into this next life has come, but he knows what waits for him: the crown of righteousness.

It's the adornment of a champion fighter.

It is that of an accomplished runner.

It is of a humble servant who was obedient to the point of death and who fulfilled his ministry.

And I love what Paul does for us here.

Because this crown isn't just for him.

It's for all who have loved his appearing.

The crown of righteousness of which Paul is anxiously waiting to be adorned with.

All who have had longing hearts, joyfully expecting that coming day.

So here's what we need to see.

When Jesus comes back, he's either going to crown you or he'll condemn you.

And those are the only two outcomes.

This is the tension that the passage is inviting us to live in.

You see, for all who have received the gospel of grace by faith, and who have joyfully worked to fulfill their calling, he will crown us with righteousness and eternal glory.

But for those who have rejected his gospel, who worked to recreate its message, who retracted from mission in fear, the coming again of the word will be a passing of his condemnation against us.

You see, both the gospel and our duty to proclaim it fully exist in light of this reality.

Jesus is coming.

Jesus has come and he is coming again.

In church, the first time Jesus came, he came to die for his enemies.

But when Jesus comes again, he will destroy them.

So we must live on mission.

The gospel alone is their saving hope.

And so here's my prayer for us as we wrap this up.

Church, that we would persevere in preaching the word.

Persevere in preaching the word.

Paul, he's locked up and facing the end.

He's pouring his heart out to Timothy, but not just to Timothy, to us as well here and now.

And what is his message?

Preach the word.

It's not just a good thought or an idea or a recommendation.

It's a duty.

And it's a duty that's established upon the very existence of God and the majesty and glory of his Son Jesus, who's coming back to make all things new.

You see, the world doesn't want to hear the gospel.

People are chasing whatever feels good, whatever seems right, turning to voices to tell them what they want to hear.

But the charge remains: don't back down.

Stand strong.

We've got to stay sober.

We must endure suffering.

We must keep sharing the good news of Jesus even when it's unpopular to do so.

So we must persevere.

Man, share the gospel with your friend.

Live relationally with others.

Share it with your coworker.

Share it with that neighbor who's lost in all the noise of culture.

Do it when the moment feels right and even when it doesn't.

Be patient.

Build relationships.

Point people to Jesus with a sincere love for them.

And stop fretting about the popularity of the gospel because the gospel is the hope that they need, whether they find it popular or not.

We've got to trust God to do the work.

We have to trust God to give us the strength to persevere.

Until, like Paul, your race is finished.

Church of Jesus is coming back.

And we have work to do, amen.