Trenton Tuggle - Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Wednesday Bible Study featuring Trenton Tuggle

Transcript Follows:

So Good evening everyone.

(Please bear with me while I adjust my podium to my liking. Thank you for the pen.)

So um, let's go ahead and turn to second Timothy chapter two. So Second Timothy chapter two.

I have always loved the book of Second Timothy. I think Second Timothy is an amazing book. Well, primarily because I believe that the author of Second Timothy is an amazing author and by author I mean both the capital 'A' author—being God—and the lowercase 'a' author—being Paul, the human author—that the Holy Spirit used to pen the book of Second Timothy.

I think a second Timothy is an amazing book, because of the circumstances under which Paul finds himself as he writes to Timothy, and I would, I would aspire to have the kind of strength that I think Timothy possesses here.

But let's go here to chapter two, because in chapter two, the heading in my Bible says, "Be strong." Now we know the headings are not inspired. And in fact, the chapter breaks and numbers are not inspired. But for whatever reason we've chosen to number this one as chapter two. And so we'll go ahead and go with it. But it says, "Be strong." And I just want to read a few verses and make a few comments about these verses. Timothy, Second Timothy chapter two, verse one.

"You therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active, service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win a prize unless he competes according to the rules. the hard working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops."

"Consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in everything."

So a couple of observations here.

So first of all, Second Timothy was written when Paul was in prison, and he wasn't just in prison, you know, for the umpteenth time—he was in imminent, he was facing imminent death. He was he knew that his end was nigh, and tradition would have it that his end was nigh, as far as we know. And so as he writes this, he knows that he has very little time left to bestow everything he can, everything the Holy Spirit has burden him with upon Timothy, this presumably young man of some youth in the faith.

And so this is what he says: he gives him these three, these three, I guess, comparisons. A soldier, and an athlete and a farmer. And he uses those as the basis for this exhortation.

He says, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." Now we know what grace is right? Grace is the unmerited favor of God, when God grants to us what we do not deserve. That's grace. It's a gift to us. So he says, be strong in that. You don't have to be strong in a gift right? I think that the context here is saying that we need to abide according to this grace, we need to abide in him, right? So this grace is a gift from God, transmitted to us, includes all that salvation entails right? Forgiveness of sins, newness of life, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, baptism of the Holy Spirit, and a new nature—all of these things, all these things add up. And what Paul is saying here is: be strong in that. Be strong in that, and the things that you heard in the presence of many witnesses, and trust these to faithful men who be able to teach others also.

This is such an important principle to me: "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust these to faithful men will be able to teach others also." It's interesting, he said, "in presence of many witnesses." I wonder what he heard that wasn't in the presence of many witnesses?

I think of myself and my family. You know, I'm, I would like to be a man of few words, but I'm not. I've always thought that that was a nice literary description—a man of few words—right?

But I'm, I put my foot in my mouth with regularity. And when I'm at home, I have, I have lots of words that fly out of my mouth, sometimes without the slightest hindrance of, like, you know, stopping to think ahead of time. They just blast right out there. And I am prone to tell Allison all kinds of things or the kids all kinds of things without thinking because it's just a stream of consciousness sometimes, particularly at the end of the day. You know, I've been doing whatever I do at work and out it comes: "boom."

But I think this is just really an interesting contrast. Personally, to me, this makes a lot of sense the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. And I think if, if that was said of me, the things that, that I say, among a lot of witnesses. Now, things that I say about my family, I pray that they would forgive me for; but the things that I say, at youth group every Friday night when I'm teaching the youth; the things that I've said, over the years of college and career Bible studies that we've had in our home; and the you know, think of all the handouts that I've printed out; the things that I've said over the years of being compelled to give Sunday morning messages; you know, in many witnesses. I would pray that those would be the things that are worth "entrusting;" that are worth passing on.

You know—and I'm just thinking of my, in my own life, you know—I'm glad that, that you all haven't heard the private ramblings of a tired person at the end of the day. You know, I'm very glad for that. But the things that I have spoken in front of many witnesses, you know, I pray that, those are the ones that are worth passing on. And that's what we should.

Thinking one to another—as we minister one to another practicing the priesthood of all believers, as we each are priests and kings, and can sharpen one another, as iron sharpens iron—I pray that those words that we say to one another, are the words that would want that, we would want to entrust and be passed on Words of encouragement, words of life, words of love. "The things that you've heard from me the presence of many witnesses entrust these to faithful men will be able to teach others also."

So there's the interesting part. And then there's the faithful men part, right? Entrust these to faithful men. Would that we would all be faithful. Would that I'd be more faithful in private when I am with my wife and kids, and I would think about what I say. But would that I would be faithful to take the gospel that's been given to me and pass it on. Would that I would be faithful. Faithful to teach and share that which I know—the light that I know. Would that I would be faithful. Would that all of us would be faithful, right?

So it's an expectation to find people who are faithful and exhortation to be faithful ourselves. We've got to be faithful to share the words that God has given us: the words of life, right? So be faithful to share these words, and be faithful to pass them on as you have ability. So.

So that's kind of the prologue and then he goes into these three examples of the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. There's a lot that we can say about the soldier, athlete and farmer and I will make maybe a few observations.

So first of all, the soldier. A young convert to Christ might stumble upon this and say, "suffer hardship with me as a good soldier." "Amen!" You might hear of Jesus Christ before you even finished with a sentence. You know, you might have a young convert to Jesus Christ thinking "Amen."

You know, I'm teaching in a youth group. I'm teaching arguments. Naturalistic arguments for the existence of God, among other things. And one of the reasons is because some of these youth are going to go out on a college campus, and they are going to be surrounded by people who have a vastly different worldview, and I want them to be able to understand that worldview, and to be able to understand where and how it intersects with the truth of God's word as He has reveald it to us.

And so you might Look at this and say, "A soldier Jesus Christ! All right, let's get our spiritual swords and armor and let's go kick some rear end!" Right? "You know, we're going to hack and slash my way through the college campus! Hack and slash my way through wherever! We're going to be a soldier of Christ. We're going to go conquer people! Win, win souls to Christ by beating with the Bible, or whatever it is." Right?

But notice what it says. It doesn't say any that! It says, "suffer hardship."

Wait, what? "Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus."

Wait a minute! "Suffer hardship?" I thought we're going to go on fight the enemy— some rear-end, take names, or not take names!

But it talks about, here, about suffering hardship.

And I think this is really a picture that's really important to know in the Christian life. You know, surely we fight for an awesome God. And were he capable? What is he capable? What is he capable of? You think of, you know, in our youth group teaching, we're thinking of how God is the Creator of all the universe.

And I've taken them back, think about all of time, all of space, we have God, the Creator of all of time, all of space, the more we look, you know, we've got the Hubble Space Telescope, we've got numerous radio telescopes, pointed, far reaches of the galaxy, or the far reaches of the universe, trying to find out the extent of creation. We can't find the end of it. They call it the "event horizon," because they presume that there must be something further than what we can see. But the reality is that God is the author of all this and surely, if he wanted to run into this college campus and, you know, convert some people by force he could, but that's not how we're to be a soldier.

Instead, the aspects of soldiering here is not the aspect of fighting is the aspect of serving. He says in verse four, "no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that you may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." The focus is here on being a servant and serving the one who enlisted you. You're just an enlisted soldier out to do his bidding, and that might be fetching slop for the other guys, right?

So, as we minister to one another, sharpening one another's iron sharpens iron, practicing the priesthood of all believers, lifting one another up with love, exhortation to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as we do these things. Think of ourselves as soldiers. Elsewhere, it says not to think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of how highly you think of yourself, if you're just an enlisted soldier, you've got nothing. I mean, you're just a nobody. It's a privilege if you get to serve the coffee to the officers, right?

And so it talks about suffering, hardship, and suffering hardship, a soldier would suffer hardship, knowing that he's part of a bigger picture. Do we know that we're part of a bigger picture? A soldier, enlisted in a larger army engaged in some sort of a campaign, or a defense or, you know, peacekeeping, or even earthworks—whatever that that army would be engaged in—think about it.

You're part of a much larger picture. And so much is so true of us. We're part of a much larger picture, much larger picture we don't see much right. It's like, "Sir, yes, sir. I'll get get the coffee for the officers. Absolutely." Right? We don't know what the officer is going to do with that coffee.

But we don't have to know, right? Do we trust our commander? Do we trust our leader? Right? And so, this aspect of soldiering, I think is really: it's very different from what you might first think, "Soldier: yes. Get out my sword, ready to go!" But it's not like that at all, instead is talking about serving and pleasing the one who enlisted you as a soldier. So that's the first comparison here.

It says also, "If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win a prize unless he competes according to the rules." Well, so this is talking about someone who's competing as an athlete for a purpose of winning a prize. (And I didn't prepare all my notes tonight.) But to to compete to win a prize. There's a lot in the Bible. (Sorry.) There's a lot in the Bible about, about competing to win a prize, about the wreaths, there's different, in fact, we had, (I think,) a series of sermons on the different wreaths that we are awarded as a reward for being faithful. And the rewards that we will get: truly, we serve someone who is able to give a reward beyond our wildest imagination, right? And so would he reward us? But, we should—it says he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.

So understanding again, that you're part of a big picture, you fitting in somewhere. you know, we don't have to, we're not out on our own, winging it. You know, it's not a matter of, well, the ends justify the means. You still have to compete according to rules, right? We're following a master. There are rules imposed on us. There's a structure imposed on us, but there is a reward.

So that's what that comparison talks to me about. "If anyone competes as an athlete does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules." Would that we would compete according to rules: that we would understand how we fit in and compete in such a way as to win the prize!

Okay, the last one, "The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in everything thing." So the hard working farmer, that's a really interesting kind of picture. Farmer. Farm work has always been, I think, truly backbreaking. Back at the very beginning in Genesis, it said, "by the sweat of your brow, you're going to eat your bread all the days of your life." By the sweat of your brow. So that's what formwork really, I think has always been about—all it all throughout history—is real labor.

But there's, there's a lot to be said for, for working hard. And it says here, "The hard working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops." I'm thinking back to some of the men who have mentored me over the years, some of the men have been really hard working men who have just dedicated their lives to the Lord, to serving the Lord. Dedicated their lives. And what an impact that has made. It has made an impact that has, has caused a harvest of other men that I know of, and women, dedicated to serving the Lord Jesus Christ. It has inspired myself. And I'm just thinking of their reward as I think of the men, you know, at Emmaus. Think of the other men just here at Lake Howell Bible Chapel, who have acted as mentors, (maybe unknowingly, maybe knowingly,) and the reward that they would have. It says, "The hard working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops."

And that just brings to my mind just the reward of. getting the often harvest of, of men and souls. What a rewarding thing It must be to mentor other men and women and to have them go on and serve the Lord. And have them go on, and just, just the reward that that must be to see. See them go on and be strong for the Lord. I'm just thinking to myself. That's kind of what just comes to my mind as I think about this.

But all these things require endurance. All of these require endurance—all of these—that's why it says be strong. "You therefore my son, be strong. In all these things consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in everything."