Why Endure Suffering? (2 Timothy 2:8-13)

Good morning, church.

It's good to see all of you here this morning.

Once again, Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Tanner have left me

all by myself, but I'm happy to be here. I

guess they trust me. Pastor Tanner is out because they

welcomed baby Asher into the world on Thursday morning at 1.52 a.m.,

so we can praise the Lord for that. He's learning

how to do the assembly line diaper change now instead

of just the one and done. And Pastor Jonathan is

in Rock Hill, South Carolina. If you'll pray for him,

he is doing preaching a revival this week, today through Wednesday.

So keep him in your prayers as he shares God's

word with them. But it's a privilege to be here

with you this morning to share God's word. Thank you, Tim,

for reading our passage this morning. We are continuing in

our study of 2 Timothy. So 2 Timothy chapter 2,

2 Timothy 2:8

verse 8. In our text for today, Paul is continuing

to encourage Timothy to endure in his ministry, even to

endure suffering for the sake of his ministry. And I

think to get the idea of what verses 8 through

13 are saying, we have to look back just at

verse 3, and Paul says to Timothy, share in suffering

as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. So he calls

Timothy to suffer. And today's passage gives us three reasons

why suffering for Christ is worth it. Now, I have

to admit right off the bat that I've just been

wrestling with this idea of preaching about suffering. I think

particularly calling you mostly to American Christians raised here in

this country to endure suffering, because I think many of

us have not experienced suffering for the faith like others

in other parts of the world have, because we have

the freedoms that we do here. We are not fearful

of coming to church. We're not fearful of having Bible

study at our homes. We're not fearful of being Maybe

it's a little more common now to get fired for

your religious beliefs, but in the near recent past, it's

not been a requirement to believe a certain thing to

have a certain job, right?

And so I....

I've struggled with how to present this to us this morning.

I don't think Paul here is talking about suffering in

regards to like pain and disease and financial trouble because

we have faced those things. Those are common suffering that

all people face in a world that's full of damage

of sin, right? The whole world suffers from cancer, from disease,

from sickness, from financial.

Struggle, right?

But I think Paul is talking about the suffering for

the faith, the suffering for the defending of the gospel

that comes from faithfully following Christ and proclaiming that good

news to people who don't.

Want to hear it.

And so throughout this message today, I'm going to speak

of suffering for the faith and And that dictionary definition

of suffering is the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.

So you can see that there's going to be different

degrees of suffering, right? Could be very minimal, like discomfort.

Could be suffering a very small amount of pain, right?

To extreme suffering that leads to death, right?

And so.

I want you to have that frame in mind because

I think speaking to American Christians here, we look at

the word suffering and suffering for the faith I think

is foreign to most of us. But in order to

be faithful to the text, Paul uses the words suffering.

So that's what I'm going to use. But for our context,

suffering for the gospel is going to look quite different

from the rest of the world. I personally don't feel

like I've suffered much. I have a home, food on

the table with snacks and coffee in between meals.

I have a car.

My health has been good. My family has been healthy

and calm. And when I compare my experience with many

Christians around the world who have suffered far more than

I have, I don't feel like I have room to

say that I've been there, do as I have done. Sure,

we may have been treated poorly, maybe mocked for being

a Christian, or possibly, like I said, losing our job

because of our beliefs. But the severity of religious persecution

against Christians in the United States is minimal. It's growing,

that's for sure. But we've had it easy for many,

many years. And so one day when we do face

opposition for our faith, how will we respond? Take Peter Jesik,

for example. He traveled to help persecuted Christians in Sudan,

and he didn't expect that he would spend 445 days

in prison because of his work. But that didn't stop him.

He still had a Bible because prisoners wanted to hear

the gospel. He realized that even in the midst of

suffering in prison, God still had work for him to do.

And I wonder how we can have the same perspective.

If following Jesus costs us our convenience, our comforts, our reputation,

our freedom, or even our safety, would we believe that

Jesus is worth it? So the question for us today

is why endure that kind of suffering? Why remain faithful

when following Jesus costs us something? In our passage, Paul

gives us three reasons. Paul tells us that following Christ

means being willing to endure the suffering for the gospel,

for others, and for eternity. Why endure suffering? Number one

this morning, because the gospel is worth suffering for. Paul

is enduring suffering for the gospel, and he wants Timothy

to understand why that gospel is worth suffering for. Let's pray,

and then let's read verses 8 through 9. Father God,

I pray this morning that you will help us to

see your heart for us and your word. Father, I

pray that you would guide me as I share from

what you've given me. Guard me from error and help

me to present the good things.

In your word. that are wonderful for us to hear.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. In verses 8 and 9, Paul says, Remember Jesus Christ,

risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached

in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with

chains as a criminal. Notice the connection that Paul makes

between his suffering and the gospel. He says, remember Jesus

Christ as preached in my gospel for which I am suffering.

He is suffering for the gospel message. The good news

that God's son, the promised Messiah from David's line, died

and rose again to bring salvation to people. Paul was

preaching this message and it put him in prison, bound

with chains and.

As a criminal.

So Paul tells Timothy. To remember Jesus Christ. The risen

son of David. As the gospel proclaims him. Why? Because Timothy.

Needs to remember that the gospel. He is suffering for.

Isn't a new idea. Or a message that Paul invented.

It's the fulfillment of God's promises. God promised a savior.

A savior. From David's line, Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus

rose from the dead. God's promises have come true. And

if God has been faithful to his promises, then Timothy

can remain faithful to the gospel even when faithfulness costs

him something. Paul was preaching the good news of salvation

so that people would be saved from But those who

rejected it became angry and arrested him. That's what happens

when we faithfully proclaim a gospel that confronts sin and

calls people to repentance and faith. 1 Corinthians 1.18 says,

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those

who are perishing. but it is the power of God

to us who are being saved. You see, that message,

that truth that Paul had believed and placed his, like

he built his life upon, he wanted people to know

it and to believe it so that they could have life.

He believed, I mean, we remember when.

Paul was Saul and he was persecuting people for this

same message. He wanted that message to stop because it

was offensive to their lives. And they didn't want to repent.

They wanted to hold on to their traditions, to their way.

They didn't want to give up themselves for honoring the

Lord by worshiping Jesus. And so Paul put people in

prison because of what they were teaching. And now, ironically,

by the grace of God, Paul is preaching the same

message and defending the same gospel because it is true.

And it was fulfilled in Jesus. And so Paul here

now is encouraging Timothy that it's worth suffering for the gospel.

It's worth suffering for the truth. Even though it's offensive

to our pride and our foolishness, it is worth suffering for.

Because it's God's promise come true and it gives life

to all who believe in it. Everyone who faithfully follows

Christ and refuses to compromise the gospel or the Bible's

teaching on marriage or abortion or money must be ready

to suffer for it. Because the gospel is God's message

of salvation. We cannot abandon or compromise it simply to

avoid suffering.

Or opposition.

Or losing our job. While we may suffer for proclaiming

the message, the power of God's saving message can never

be hindered. Paul finally says in verse 9, you notice

I probably skipped over a part or I ended. I

think this is so hopeful. Paul says, but the word

of God is not bound. He exclaims this truth immediately

after he says he is in chains because it gives

hope in the midst of suffering. The impact of the

gospel message is bigger and far more reaching than we could.

Ever do ourselves.

When we give up peace and comfort that comes from

staying silent, we have to remember that we are fighting

a much bigger war than we ourselves are capable of winning.

We have to trust that the message itself has all

the power. When we are opposed, rejected, or maybe one

day imprisoned because of our boldness to proclaim the truth,

our abilities to share might be significantly reduced. But the

bigger power is in the message, the truth that we

proclaim to all who need to hear it. The word

of God continues to change hearts because the good news

cannot be stopped. Why endure suffering? Because the gospel is

God's promised message of salvation and God's promises have come true.

But why should Paul continue suffering? Because the gospel isn't

just true, it saves people. And so people are worth

suffering for. Paul isn't just suffering because that gospel is true.

He's suffering because the gospel changes lives. Paul's endurance through

suffering comes from two places. It's God's power and it's

human need. So verse 10 starts with, therefore, which points

us back, links back with what Paul has just said.

He just said, the word of God is not bound. Therefore,

Paul endures. His chains haven't stopped God's saving work. So

he isn't going to stop proclaiming that gospel. God's power

is not found in us. It's not found in our strength.

God doesn't need us to bring sinners to repentance. The

gospel message alone that convicts hearts and produces repentance and

fruit is what God uses to bring about his glory

and his kingdom. And so, yeah, we want to say, Lord,

use me. But even if you don't, you are still

going to receive the honor and the glory that comes

from sinners who come to faith. Putting ourselves in Paul's shoes,

we can be held back by sickness, frailty, finances, family

struggles that limit what we can do in our lives.

But they cannot stop God from accomplishing his saving purposes

through his word. Paul also endures suffering because he sees

the human need. Notice as he continues in verse 10,

I endure everything for the sake of the elect that

they also may, here's his goal, obtain the salvation that

is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. God has people

who belong to him. And Jesus uses a metaphor in

John 10 that helps us understand. In that passage, we

see that Jesus has sheep who belong to him, and

he calls to them, and they know his voice. When

he calls to them, they come. And Paul knows this,

and so he's, Paul endures suffering so that he can

proclaim his the gospel to God's people and see them

obtain that salvation that is in Christ Jesus. It's by

his blood, by his death and resurrection with eternal glory.

And so we see in several letters that Paul has

written that Paul was called to be an apostle who

preached God's word to the Gentiles. And he refers to

his calling often as an apostle, and we see the

difficulties that he has faced along the way, like beatings, imprisonments, stonings,

a shipwreck, lacking food and water, among others. But Paul

knew in spite of those difficulties that he could not

stay silent or stay home because taking the gospel to

the people who needed it was worth suffering for. Jesus

himself suffered on the cross to take away the sin

of those who hear and believe in him. He went

to the extreme to make a way for you and

I to be saved. We can't let that good news.

Stop with us.

We must spend our lives trying to convince people of

their sinful hearts and their need for new life. Just

to be honest, I felt convicted recently because I haven't

taken that time to tell people about Jesus in my

daily life.

Because I fear people.

I fear their response. I fear their response. it's hard

to talk to people about Jesus because we fear maybe

our reputation, or we fear losing relationships. Or maybe we say, well,

I'll get to know them a little bit better, and

then I'll be able to share Jesus with them. And

then we get to know them too much, and they're like,

oh man, I don't want to lose this relationship. I

don't want them to think I'm being pushy or something

like that, right? We always have an excuse to not

engage someone with the gospel. It might be that they're

going to ask questions that I don't know how to answer.

And so there's fear.

There's this, don't you see how this is a fear

of man problem? We don't share because we fear rejection

or that we're not smart enough or we That's the

minor version of what we're feeling. That discomfort is, we

don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want to have

a lack of.

Assurance, right?

And so it's just like, I've been trying to go

to the gym recently and And, you know, the hardest

part is going, is like getting in your car and

going to the gym because you, I don't know, are lazy.

You don't want to give up what you're doing. Maybe

I don't have enough time. Maybe it's going to be

a little painful. Can't all of those reasons be said

for why I'm not sharing the gospel with people? man,

I don't have time today. I wish I could stop

by and, you know, engage this in conversation.

I don't have time.

It's going to be a little painful because maybe they're

going to ask me something that I don't know. What

words am I going to say? Oh man, it means

I'd have to like get out of my house when

I just got home or I was out all day

yesterday and today I just want to be here and

take care of things that are on my to-do list.

Those are all the same reasons why we shouldn't go

to the gym too, right? And so it's really a

problem with like, we know what we need to do,

but we aren't willing to go through some hard things

to make it happen. And so Paul is encouraging Timothy

through this suffering that people are worth it. People are

worth getting out of our comfort zone, maybe losing a

little bit of extra sleep, a little bit of discomfort.

You know, when I get to the gym and I'm there,

it's like, okay, I'm here.

I'm going to do it.

I think the same happens when I start sharing Jesus

to somebody, right? When you first get there, you're like, okay,

I'm going to try to tiptoe my way into this conversation.

And then once you're there, man, God gives you what

you need to say. And that time might be a

little difficult, but the more you keep going to the gym,

the easier it gets. The more you keep running or

lifting weights or exercising, the easier it gets. It's the

same way with sharing our faith. The more we do it,

the more practice we get, the more comfortable we get,

and we're never going to be perfect. But that's where

God's grace comes in. The Holy Spirit is going to

tell us what we need to say to that person

in that moment to share faith. the gospel with them.

He knows their hearts.

We don't.

So we rely on him for all of those fearful moments.

Paul says he suffers for the sake of those who

need to hear. He is determined to deliver the news

that brings salvation to the lost. In Romans, Paul says

that belief comes from hearing the word of God.

And how will they.

Hear unless someone shares it? That's a call for you

and me to be bold, to share the good news,

to share what Christ has done in our lives, even

if it's just our testimony, to share like, man, this

is where I used to be, this is where I

am now, and it's all because of Jesus. In seminary,

they teach us about a 15-second testimony. This is who

I used to be, this is what Jesus has done

in my life, and this is who I am now.

Do you have a story like that?

It's an easy way to share the gospel and promote

conversation with somebody. So why should we endure being uncomfortable

like this? Because Christ was willing to suffer to bring

us the gospel. Shouldn't we be willing to do hard

things to take that gospel to others? We have prayer

walk this evening. You know where I'm going with this.

That would be a great place to start. Because if

you're afraid of what to say.

Currently, we're just going door to door and we're hanging

door hangers on doors.

You don't even have to speak.

But that door hanger says, we've prayed for you. And

it has a QR code that if they scan it,

there's a video that shares the gospel with them.

And I think the biggest way or.

The biggest impact that we're having with our current prayer

walks is that we are praying. We're praying for the

Lord to move in our neighbors, in our community, to

Because if he's not working, our work is in vain, right?

And so I think first of all, we're going door

to door and we're saying, we're here. And if somebody

does come to the door, if we see someone, we

usually say, hey, we're praying for your neighborhood. Is there

any way that we can pray for you? We're from

Bethesda down the street and we love our neighbors and

we want to pray with you. And sometimes they say,

no thanks. And sometimes we don't even see anybody. And

so I think this prayer walk is a helpful way

to just get your feet wet. And if you are like, well,

I don't want to just hang, you know, door hangers on.

I want to talk to somebody.

Then come on.

We can talk to people. We can knock on doors

and we can talk to people. And I think the biggest,

you know, the biggest rejection, I maybe have shared it before, is,

you know, sometimes I'm afraid, like, man, people are going to, like,

run me off, you know, with something.

But they never have.

They've just, I think this lady got off her couch,

she came and she shut the door. That's the strongest

rejection that I've received in my four years being here.

And so.

We don't have a reason to be scared. One, because

the Lord is with us and he calls us to

pray for people for their salvation. And also because people

are generally not that harsh in our neighborhoods. Praise the

Lord for that. And so I encourage you to make

the decision now that you're going to be here at

four o'clock today out in our lobby to go and

pray for our neighbors or knock on their doors and share.

The hope that you have.

So why do we endure this momentary sacrifice of our

time and our comfort on Sunday afternoon?

Because people need the gospel.

They are worth the awkwardness, the rejection, and the inconvenience

of us spending that time on Sunday afternoon.

And guess what?

Whatever discomfort we have now is temporary because lastly, eternity

is is worth suffering for. Paul concludes the section of

this passage, verses 11 through 13, with a faithful saying

that gives the outcome of those who endure and those

who don't. Scholars believe this was a well-known saying that

might have been recited in churches since it communicates good

theology with both hope and a warning with eyes on eternity.

And so in verse 11a, Paul just states that this

saying is trustworthy or it presents this truth well. And

then in 11b, he says, if we have died with him,

we will also live with him. Now this communicates like this,

all of these verses, 11 through 13, are sort of

like a compact presentation of the gospel and where it ends,

if you believe it, and where it ends if you don't, right?

So you can, you could say maybe this is like

one of our, like a creed that we would have, right?

It's a general compact statement of the truth. And so

Paul says, And that first one, it's more like how

describing how we go from death to life, right? In

Romans 6, 4, Paul does something similar when he talks

about how baptism pictures our salvation, right? He says that

we were buried with Christ and we were raised to

walk in new life. Here he says, if we have

died with Christ, we will also live with him. When

we go from guilty sinners to receiving the.

Promise of eternal life with our Lord, we go from

death and sin to life with Christ. We're dying to

ourselves and we're living for Christ with him forever in heaven.

So that's a promise to those who belong to Christ

and share in his death. They will also share in

his resurrection life. The next line, verse 12a says, It says,

if we endure, we will also reign with him. He's

saying that if we endure to the end, if we

remain faithful to carry out what we are called to do,

we will reign with him in heaven. The idea is

that we endure momentary affliction or opposition now, refusing to

bow to the world's ideologies and sins temptations. We prove

the authenticity of our faith by Both of these lines

are positive, right?

If we have died, then we will live. If we endure,

we will reign. And next... 12b turns negative. Paul says....

If we deny him in this life, he will also

deny us. If we don't endure and turn away instead,

he will deny knowing us because we gave up or

turned to a different message. We see that happening a

lot in today's world. Christianity is too high of a

cost to pay, and so people tweak their their theology

to appease the world. Think of the parable of the

sower in Matthew 13. Jesus uses this parable to talk

about four different soils. You know, the metaphor he uses

is agriculture. So the four different soils represent four different

hearts or four different people. And the seed that's sown

in the soil represents the gospel, right? And the first one,

that person, the soil, the seed doesn't even get to sprout, okay?

It's stolen away.

And then the last one, the seed is planted or

the gospel is planted and it bears fruit and that

person is very fruitful in their Christian life. But the

middle two, the middle two, the seed is planted and

it produces, it sprouts, it produces life and But because

the conditions aren't perfect, because they're not right, they might be,

the Bible says, rocky or thorny, the plant dies. And

Jesus says that those two are like people who have

faced adversity or opposition. They have believed quickly the news

that they've heard. But when trouble or persecution or worries

and cares of this life come or temptations to sin,

pleasure that seems better than what I'm getting with the Lord,

when those come, those hearts quickly abandon the truth that

they once proclaimed. They give up because the suffering wasn't

worth it. Eternity with Jesus wasn't worth enduring, going without

earthly pleasures or facing ridicule. Paul says, if we deny

him in this life, he will deny us to have

eternity with him. And thus we see the warning to

keep seeking Christ, even in the midst of struggle that

he brings up now in this next verse. In verse 13,

he says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful forever.

for he cannot deny himself. Suffering for the kingdom is hard.

It requires constant denial of self, our desires, our pleasures,

our schedules, the language we use, the relationships we have.

One of the daily battles we have is to fight

the battle of temptation of sin.

For the rest of our lives.

And it might seem to you, when is the Lord

going to give me success in defeating this constant temptation

in my life? And he might take it away on

this life, but he might not. And so is eternity

worth suffering daily, the battle of denying of sin? Sometimes

we lose that battle. And that's when Paul says here,

if we are faithless, we will never be able to

win the battle on our own endurance or willpower. It's

a battle that we endure and maybe suffer through until

we are freed from this body of sin once we

reach heaven. But until then, we are called to endure.

Endure.

What does it mean that Christ remains faithful? It means

that he will always be faithful to who he is

and what he has promised, even in our mistakes and

our faithlessness. He will be faithful to those who belong

to him, and he will be faithful to judge those

who reject him. Paul says he cannot deny himself. And

so as I conclude today, Maybe this message is hard

for you to hear because you know it requires significant self-denial, willpower, discomfort.

It reminds me of Jesus telling his disciples that we

must deny ourselves daily, take up our cross, and follow him.

And you don't know if you can do it. I

think the key to remember is that you can't. You

can't do it on your own. And I think there's

peace in that. There's peace in that. I don't have

to be perfect. I don't have to be the one

who never fails. Paul gives us the, he expects us

to be faithless. And when we are faithless, we depend

on the one who is always faithful. That's where the

good news of the gospel begins. It's not that you

need to try harder in your life to resist bad

behaviors and try to do good all the time. The

gospel message is that you are a sinner separated from

God and unable to please him. But God sent his son,

Jesus Christ, to save sinners like you. Jesus is the

promised son of David that came into the world, lived

a righteous life that you and I have failed to live.

He died on the cross, taking the place of sinners

to pay that penalty and rose from the dead, defeating

death on our behalf. And because Jesus died and rose again,

forgiveness and eternal life are available to us. Not because

you can endure enough or obey enough or be good enough,

but because Christ has done what you could never do.

So I call you today to come to him in

repentance and faith. Trading your failures and inadequacies for his

perfection and righteousness. Don't leave today thinking, I need to

try harder. Leave today admitting, I need Jesus. Paul has

told Timothy to endure. But Timothy's hope isn't ultimately that

he will be faithful enough. His hope is that Christ

is faithful. Even when our faith is weak, Christ remains

faithful to himself and to his promises. So Christian, endure.

not because you are strong enough, but because Christ is faithful,

even in the midst of opposition and suffering. Let's pray together.

Father God, we come to you this morning and we

thank you that your word is a comfort to us

who battle daily the desires within us to give glory

to you. Father, every moment that we are called to

serve you, every moment that we have this inkling in

our heart that we need to share or we need

to serve you, Lord, there's probably just hesitation. There's other

competing tasks that come to mind. But Father, help us

remember that you are worth enduring suffering, discomfort, a lack

of peace and maybe safety.

For your kingdom.

Father, move in our hearts that we would be willing

to serve you because you have served us by giving

your life for us. We thank you for Jesus and

we pray in his name.

Amen.