Faithful Endurance: Pressing On for Future Glory

One of the challenges that I have as an educator, I have uh five classes of 28 kids in each class of 13-year-olds.

All right, so you can imagine that, right?

There's a bunch of smells and interesting things that happen in my day every day, right?

The amount of times that I say to middle school boys to stop touching one another is mind-boggling.

Why I get paid to do that, right?

Um, you know, kids that are trying to find their spot and their place.

Um, but the challenge that I have each and every day is trying to grab their focus and their attention, right?

Trying to redirect them to stop living for the moment, but seeing the bigger picture as who they are going to become.

You could probably remember yourself as a 13-year-old and all the social pressures and things that were calling for your attention.

Your education journey required time, patience, hard work, boundaries, but most importantly, focus.

We're continuing to work through the second letter to Timothy from Paul.

Paul is calling forth a focus for his disciples.

Paul exhorts Timothy last week, right?

Guard the deposit entrusted to you.

Timothy, we know from other texts, he is weak, he's timid.

Where are you gonna find your strength, Timothy?

Timothy, how are you going to guard this message?

I am no longer with you.

And actually, in a few days, Paul's life will shortly end.

You've heard me proclaim this message in the presence of many witnesses.

This is now your message that you must protect and teach.

It's not static, but it has to be taught and entrusted to other men so that it might multiply.

This word must be received, it must be known, lived by, so that others may know that.

Why?

Because sin, death, hopelessness fill our culture.

And the church is the agent God has called to bring the message of reconciliation.

The gospel is a message that needs to be heralded and witnessed, it needs to be lived out and walked out and applied to all people in all situations and circumstances in life.

Paul encourages Timothy: this is not you and your strength, but in the grace of Christ Jesus, to remind him of the urgency of this message and to encourage him to persist in this world.

And I want to pause here, though, because this letter is specific to Timothy, right?

He is an elder, he is a leader, a shepherd of God's people.

And he's called to guard and deposit this message, to train men, to carry the torch of raising up other men to defend the gospel.

And here at SMC, we we have that same vision of identifying and training future elders.

Some men in our congregation right now might even aspire to that office.

In the next few months, we're actually offering an elder discovery cohort to help assess you in those aspirations along a community of other men.

But while this is a specific letter to Timothy, this applies to all his disciples, all believers.

This is his drive for everything that's going to proceed from here.

Right?

Pastor Justin a few weeks ago asked, is this worth it?

Is this Christian life worth it?

And we're going to see that it requires a focus and forbearance, but for a future glory.

That's the main idea that Paul is trying to communicate that there is a focus and forbearance for future glory.

And I want to pause on this word, the word forbearance might be unfamiliar, but I really like it as it speaks something greater than just being patient.

But there is a self-control and a restraint tied up in this word.

When Paul talks to Timothy, he uses three analogies to kind of paint a picture of the call to be a disciple of Christ.

And while it's specific to Timothy, it's general to all of the disciples: to the husband, to the wife, to the single, to the child, to the mother, to the 40-hour a week laborer, the part-time worker, the retiree, the grandparent.

These three word pictures imprint on our hearts the message and the call of discipleship, the call to focus.

So focus and forbearance.

There's kind of three points Paul unpacks here.

The first one is the good soldier.

The good soldier.

Share in the suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlists him.

My brother was in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the 75th Ranger Regiment.

He was stationed in Tacoma, Washington.

You can see a picture of him up there.

I won't tell him, but he got the better genes, 6'2, 250, like a BMI of one.

But he is the training that he went through, right?

This physical stress, the mental stress he went through to become a ranger, taking the elite, the top of the candidates, would put my workouts to shame.

Right?

The mental pressures.

There were three major tests that he had to go through.

And I remember getting a letter from one of them during his second test.

He was dropped off in rural North Carolina.

And during that time, they were given only what was on his back in the platoon that he was with.

And the letter was this hallucination.

He was about two weeks in of just all of the food that he wanted to eat, like skyline and grippos and twinkies and all these like random things that you could tell he's like something's not right with his mind.

He even shared about a strayed chicken that they had found from a random farm that they were able to kill and actually have a nice, nice meal.

He had lost almost 30 pounds in that span of time.

Portions of the tests would require minimal sleep, right?

Waking them up only two hours of sleep a day to see if you could perform under high stress task with the mental wear.

After all these tests, though, he uh passed and he did a few tours in Syria and Iraq.

Um, but during his time in his station, he he wasn't just done, right?

Every single day there was intentional training, refining his skills to be an elite soldier, handling firearms, hostile situations, specific to the context that he was going to be, preparing for every and all circumstances.

Because, why?

At any moment in his deployment, he could, or his other brothers along with him, could lose their lives.

But also the higher calling of representing the United States.

The Christian life as a disciple is one of suffering and self-denial.

Good soldiers are disciplined and focused on the task that they've been at hand.

A soldier's concentration, right, is different from that of the civilian.

Tertullian, a second century theologian, uh, puts it this way: No soldier comes to war surrounded by luxuries, nor goes into action from a comfortable bedroom, but from the makeshift and narrow tent where every kind of hardness and severity and unpleasantness is to be found.

Paul is not shy about the cost of being a disciple.

If we're to be loyal to the gospel, we will suffer in persecution.

We must share in the sufferings with our commander.

The focus of a good soldier is what drives him, right?

When he wakes up each morning, he knows his mission and task at hand.

There is going to be temptations around him, right?

The former life, the comfortable life, the worldly pleasures.

But Paul addresses this.

Do not, do not, this is a command from the highest order.

Do not get entangled in civilian pursuits.

Do not love the world or the things in this world.

For if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

First John.

The word soldier in verse 4 is actually different than verse 3.

Verse 3 refers to someone who's bound to military service, right?

Someone when you think of a soldier.

But in verse 4, Paul's using a different language for soldier.

Someone who's actually engaging in spiritual warfare.

Then the Bible is clear the state about our spiritual war.

There is no neutrality in the Bible.

We are in a spiritual battle every day.

The enemy would love to make you believe that this is a time of peace, that things are right, that you can kick your feet up to enjoy the civilian pursuits.

But we know from the Apostle Peter that the devil is prowling.

He's looking to isolate, to weaken the pack, to steal, kill, and destroy.

Civilian pursuits are analogous to our temporal and fleeting pleasures of this world.

The soldier has orders, a task, a mission.

All around him, there are worldly pursuits.

And when we think about it, we know this, right?

Each morning we wake up and our mind floods.

It floods with things.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

The focus of a soldier, he understands his task, his mission, and his identity.

Do we know ours, church?

Do we know our mission?

Do we know our position, our rank where we stand before the king?

Then we have the athlete.

An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

The second analogy used here, we see Paul, is one who is participating for a game in a game for a prize, the crown.

This isn't the first time that Paul uses this analogy of an athlete.

In 1 Corinthians, he says, every athlete exercises, here's that word again, self-control, forbearance, restraint in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we are imperishable.

Every athlete is to exercise self-control.

I love sports.

I love sports.

Amazes me some of the physical abilities that humans have, right?

Some of these professional, most elite athletes in their craft.

Kobe Bryan, he has the Mamba mentality, right?

He was fearless, relentless, obsessive, resilient in his craft, practicing up to six hours a day.

VJ Singh was one of the putter or uh golfers I grew up watching.

He would do these marathon putting sessions after his rounds, where we would putt 103-foot putts, and if he missed one, he would reset.

The self-discipline that these athletes have drives them to be the best so they can obtain the prize.

But rules have to be followed or their consequences, right?

That's what makes the game the game.

Performance-enhancing drugs and professional sports, it's reeked with them.

Betting on games causing unwanted biases, right?

And what are the rules of our race?

It's the law of God.

We're to be obedient to the instructions of our Lord.

There's no shortcuts to the kingdom of God.

This is only possible by the work that Christ accomplishes on our behalf.

How do you know you're my disciples?

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

These are not a burdensome weight, but these are a delight.

I love our the London Baptist Confession as it talks to the Word about the Word of God in a very concise way.

It's a little long, but bear with it as we kind of unpack it.

I think it's really rich.

As it's speaking about the Word of God, it says it is very useful to them and to others as what?

The rule of life that informs them of the will of God and their duty.

It directs and obligates them to live according to its precepts.

It also exposes the sinful corruptions of their natures, hearts, and lives.

As they examine themselves in the light of the law, what happens?

We become fooler convicted, humiliation for hatred of sin, along with a clearer view of the need for Christ, beholding him in his perfection of his obedience.

The law is useful to the regenerate, the church, to restrain them from corruption because it forbids sin.

The punishment threatened by the law shows them that what even their sins deserve and what troubles they may expect in this life due to their sin, even though this is good news, they are freed from the curse and its undiminished severity of it.

Is the law of God something that you delight in?

Is it something you do delight in?

Is it something that you meditate day and night?

The promise in Psalm 1.

The man who meditates on the day and night is like the is like a man planted by streams of water and in its season yields its fruit.

Its leaves don't wither, and all he does, he prospers.

These laws are to be kept and cherished for our good.

They're the instructions for the race, they create the boundaries.

We cannot win the game if you don't know the rules.

Timothy must preach this word faithfully.

He must guard this word.

There's a diligence and a patience and perseverance in this proclamation.

And there are going to be attempts, right?

To take shortcuts.

But he must push through.

Through the preaching that men might hear and respond to the good news.

People are going to change the rules.

I was uh, have you ever played a game with kids that they have created?

Right?

At it at it's like one of the most frustrating things.

Like we were at the park the other day, and our boys uh were playing with some of the other kids, and they created this hodgepodge like rugby, football, kickball game.

And by the end of it, everyone was in tears, right?

Because there is the rules are being made up as the game is going along.

And usually the people who are changing the rules are trying to get them for their own advantage, right?

This is the very reason the reformer Martin Luther stamped his thesis on the corrupt Catholic Church in 1517.

For too long, creating new rules for those who are in power would receive financial benefit and taking advantage of people's spiritual care.

It marked a hunger to go back to the source of truth, to let the word of God be the authority of the church and of people's lives.

And to this day, even in our Western culture, many churches are making up rules as they go along.

They're taking the blueprints God has given for his people, creating a completely different game that leads souls away from the king for their own advantage.

Galatians 1 9, as we have said before, and so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Timothy has been called to preserve this message.

There's one gospel message: one Jesus, one Savior, one way to the Father, by grace alone, through faith alone.

The athlete runs an obedient life through the Son, by the power of the Spirit.

And lastly, we have the farmer.

It's the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

Some of you have grown up on farms, uh, and you know what that's like.

Some of you might even be farmers, but many of us have the blessing of just going to the grocery store, or let alone just having the groceries dropped off at your house.

That's how we kind of currently do it.

But the strenuous labor of a farmer, unlike that of the soldier and the athlete, is totally absent from excitement, lacking glamour, applause, and fame.

Right?

I grow and labor all summer long in my garden.

I get four like cherry tomatoes and some dried up broccoli, right?

I've even just recently bought like this uh hydroponics kit to sit on my uh table to hopefully help uh start my seeds better.

Paul doesn't sugarcoat the labors he's the disciple is entering into.

The work is not glamorous.

There will be long laws, the days will be long, you will be tired.

In off-season, he is planning and tilling and strategizing the most effective ways to maximize the harvest.

In season, the farmer is fighting to kill anything that is trying to destroy his crops, any weed that's trying to choke them out from the fruit that he wants to experience.

And in his hard labors, though, there's a harvest.

Getting to experience the fruit of the labors, the first fruits, but then also others getting to experience in that.

We want the extraordinary, though, right?

We want the quick fix, we want the fast growth, instant fruit.

But God hasn't ordained the simple, the gradual, the oftentimes feeling slow, painstaking growth, the daily digestions of the scriptures, the fellowship with God's people, prayer and fasting, a dependency upon God.

And in that hard work is the taste that we get to experience, pulling back the weeds and experiencing the fruitful life that God promises.

J.C.

Ryle in his book Holiness says this I will never shrink from declaring my belief that there is no spiritual gains without pains.

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in the business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to obtain much holiness who is not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayer, and the use of Sundays.

Our God is a God who works by means, and he will never bless the soul of a man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them.

The Christian life isn't one of glamor, it's a humble life, tilling the field, backbreaking work, blood, sweat, a work that makes a man's hands callous.

But the work is good.

Because in that labor and hard work, the product is the thing that sustains life.

The disciplines of the Christian life are the very means God has used for the growth of his people.

In each of these analogies, God is calling man to folk to focus, to have self-discipline and hard work, patience, long-suffering restraint.

Paul presents the ideals, but the warnings are implicit.

There is a life that is hostile or quenches the calling of a lifestyle of a disciple.

For the soldier, there's the dishonorable discharge.

The warning giving to the soldier is one to not get entangled in civilian pursuits.

We see the soldier has to have laser focus.

But when his eye is tempted, he allows his mind to wander on the worldly pleasures.

It consumes him.

The world is going to continue to call to you each and every day.

Whatever it takes to get your attention away, and each person in this room has their thing, their thorn, and the list is endless.

For many of us, it doesn't take much.

It's the scroll, the click, the news, the purchase, the sports, the trivial conversations, gambling video games, and before you know it, we've drifted, we've left our position and our post, drawn away from the enemy.

The enemy is at war with God and his people.

His tactics are many.

You have to ask yourself each morning, what are those things calling for your attention?

What's drawing you away from your assignment?

Then we have the cheater.

If the athlete is to play by the rules, to receive the substitutionary work that Christ did on the cross on your behalf, to rest in his promises, to work from a place of being saved rather than working to save ourselves, to deny oneself, to take up the cross, to walk the narrow gate, not the wide and easy gate.

Moralism is the belief that we are good enough.

That you don't need God to save you.

And you might not verbalize this, but in your mind and your heart, you puff yourself up.

This man is a cheater and will not receive the crown of righteousness.

He may find himself moral and good, but the scriptures call his works like menstrual rags.

We must have a right view of sin, the depravity of man, the vileness that we've had against our Creator, that we all have fallen short of the glory of God.

There is a cosmic gap between our position and him.

These aren't just general wrongdoings that to be swept under a rug, but require the payment of God's Son.

Proverbs says, every way of a man is right in his own eyes.

It's the very lie of deception.

But the Lord weighs the heart.

There is no hiding.

You want a litmus test.

When someone wrongs you and is repentant, are you quick to forgive, not holding a grudge, or are you holding on to something to make a point later?

To be right, to hide the high moral ground.

We behave like the servant in Matthew 18, who was forgiven 10,000 talents, which is equivalent to about 13 billion dollars.

Yet are unable to forgive our debtor who owes a hundred denarii, only four months' wages.

And lastly, we have the idol, the sloth.

The farmer's hard working, but the sloth will sleep in.

He is like a man who plants his garden and leaves it, hoping that it will just grow.

It'll dry up, wither, and there will be no fruit.

Proverbs 12.

Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.

This requires work.

Some of us don't want to put in the work for whatever reason it may be.

Some might sit here this morning and say, I want to, I just don't know how.

I don't know where to start.

I don't know how to plow this spiritual field.

And those are great admissions, but don't let those be a stumbling block to do nothing.

God has given mature men and women in this church to build his church up, engaging with the people of God and his word.

We do this weekly in our mission groups as we open up God's word and try to apply it into our lives, sharpening each other's swords.

We have mission-equipped classes to train us theologically for those who are new to the faith, foundations, for those who are wanting to dig deeper to understand the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, that our right understanding of who God is would transform our practice to the way we love the people around us, but ultimately what calls our hearts to sing and worship of our Creator.

Some of you might have grown up in the church and gone through all these motions, right?

You know the answers, but your very own spiritual disciplines of spending with time with the Savior are non-existent.

You have the bread of life before you, but you feel famished.

You have the living water, but you're parched.

They're spiritual disciplines for a reason, because they require us to put in some effort.

We can't just assume that we're being around things that we are going to receive it through osmosis.

Paul talks we are to also work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

But the other side of that coin, though, as well, it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

There's two sides of the coins, right?

God is going to get us across this finish line.

But there's a walking, there's a running in that.

We have to stoke the gifts that God has given to us.

And there are many days when I wake up and I don't want to read, when I don't want to study or pray, that it feels that it'll be fruitless.

But the way that I feel versus the story of reality is very different.

So we must discipline ourselves.

We feel the weight of Paul's analogies, right?

There's an urgency here because each one of these, the consequences are high.

A soldier fighting a war, not properly trained, could die on duty.

The athlete can lose, and the farmer will starve.

And many of us have failed to live up the cost of being good soldiers, getting entangled in civilian pursuits, trying to cheat the system by earning our own salvation, by bypassing the way that Christ has made, or being idle in our affairs and chalking up everything that God's in control and neglecting the responsibilities that He has called His people to.

The grotesqueness of our sin makes us incompetent to be good soldiers, to run the race well, to bear any fruit in our own labors.

And sitting in this passage has unpeeled, even in my own heart, the inadequacies that I feel, the shortcomings, the lack of focus.

It demands a justice.

And while it is heavy, the Christians have to reflect on those shortcomings, but we don't stay there.

We have to go to the fountain, come to the cross and remember our old man, but live as a new man.

Christ embodied all of these things so that now in him we are empowered to live out those realities.

Christ counted the cost.

Christ counted the cost.

And only Christ can fulfill those costs.

The suffering soldier was Christ.

He had a mission.

Civilian pursuits, though he was tempted by the devil on the mountain for 40 days, did not fold but stood on the very promises of God.

His suffering was met, the ultimate climax on the hill where he was crucified, bearing the weight of all of his people's sins.

The wrath of God poured out on him.

And the garden of promise to Adam was that if you obey, there will be a blessing, but if you disobey, there will be a curse.

Adam failed, and subsequently all others did after him.

But the second Adam was obedient to the rule of the law.

He was the athlete who competed within the boundaries of the game, and there was no law that he broke and lived the obedient life.

That we have failed to follow the rules, those of us who put our faith in Christ will see that we are crossed over in the finish line.

We are reckoned righteous before God.

He came to a throne, came from a throne to a humble manger.

He was the exact imprint of God.

Now stepping into our space and time, every motion, action was thoughtful in his proclaiming of repentance in the coming of the kingdom of God.

His life was marked with focus and forbearance.

Hardworking his labors were.

As he ministered to the lowly and humble, nothing was glamorous about that.

But he tilled the spiritual soil of twelve lowly men.

But the fruit of his labors birthed the church by the power of his spirit.

Christ suffered as the good soldier, he was obedient as the best athlete.

And in his hard work and labor, he is the farmer that yields its fruit in its due season.

Christ is the exemplar of focus and forbearance.

The work is finished.

We can't do those things on our own, but now in Christ, we are empowered by the Spirit.

We can now operate in our new reality.

This is why Paul starts this section.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

There's a promise and reward in this text that we as Christians can hold fast to, of future glory that we get to experience.

The soldier's aim is to please the one he serves, to bring delight in the service.

It's a higher purpose.

He steps out of this civilian pursuit of living for self but lives for something different.

John Piper, it's a contemporary pastor who's imprinted much on the 21st century Reformed churches, coins this phrase, Christian hedonism.

He defines this as God is most glorified, right?

This is our aim when we are most satisfied in Him.

God is most glorified, right?

This is the soldier's aim when we are most satisfied with Him, not pursuing civilian pursuits.

Set our minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.

We believe that seeking our pursuits, our own self-esteem, is going to drive our satisfaction in life.

The scriptures contradict that.

And when we are satisfied with God, rightly using the things that God has given us, we'll find true satisfaction.

Self-denial, not self-esteem, fills the scriptures and promises us peace when found in Christ.

Self-denial, not self-esteem, fills the scriptures and promises us peace in Christ.

The hardworking farmer will reap the fruit in its season.

What's the smell of the true Christian?

That he's bearing fruit.

Does your life smell of personal holiness?

Do you find sin more repulsive?

Do you find yourself beholding your Savior?

Does his work encourage you?

Is there a zeal for the things that he loves and his people?

Where is your treasure this morning?

That you will reap from the harvest.

And sometimes it feels slow.

But in these disciplines, he is pruning, he is growing.

Trust in those promises.

There's a satisfaction that we'll experience in our pleasing of our Maker.

There's a fruit we will experience in the hard work and discipline.

And lastly, there's a crown of righteousness that you will wear.

Imagine that day, church.

The day you come before the throne of God.

In all of its splendor, you stand before the creator of all things, the king of kings, the Alpha, the Omega.

And what do you offer them?

What words do you have?

What works do you have to show?

We have nothing to offer but what Christ has purchased.

We are reckoned righteous before the King, adopted as sons and daughters, a royal priesthood, a new creation.

In verse 7, Paul says, think over what I say.

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

It's in this identity, as adopted sons and daughters, citizens to the king, that we meditate so that we can be good soldiers and athletes and hardworking farmers.

Understanding our position before God, the uniform that we put on each morning.

We must fight to remember that identity, and in that we can have the focus and the forbearance to run the race well.

Like my students that I was talking about in the beginning, often they are immature and uh but it's really cool to see over the years of their education when they come back to hear the stories of their experiences, the way that they have grown and matured, are becoming more like Christ.

Our sanctification process is one of focus and forbearance.

There's going to be bumps along the ways, but by God's grace, through pursuing the eternal things, living obedient lives and hard work, we get to experience the fruits of our labor and a future glory.

Amen.

Let's pray.