I was meeting with a client recently, and when I started scratching the palm of my hand she said, "you're going to win a lot of money in the lottery," to which I responded, "no, I don't think that's going to happen." Winning lots of money in the lottery is unlikely in the best of circumstances, but since I don't ever buy lottery tickets my chances of winning anything are pretty-much non-existent (unless I were to find a winning ticket on the sidewalk). I don't meet the one necessary condition for winning, because you have to play to win, and I don't play. I don't put myself "in the way" of winning. If you want a suntan, you don't sit inside with the shades drawn; you go outside and put yourself in the way of the sun. If you're looking for a job, it won't do you much good to sit at home and wait for someone to offer you one. The sensible thing is to start filling out applications; this doesn't guarantee that you'll find a job, but it does put you in the way of finding one.
Paul, who is nearing the end of his life, is reminding Timothy of things he's said in the past, knowing that he won't be around much longer to act as Timothy's mentor. Near the end of chapter one he says that everyone in Asia has deserted him. Then he prays for the family of Onesiphorus (who appears to have died), since he was not ashamed [of Paul's] imprisonment. It seems likely, as I pointed out in the last sermon, that those in Asia deserted him because they were ashamed. Onesiphorus is someone who did the opposite, who stood with him during a difficult and dangerous time.
So there are two different ways that people respond to the hardships Paul is enduring as a prisoner of the Lord: those in Asia have turned away from him, and Onesiphorus sought to minister to him (and maybe ended up paying for it with his life). Then Paul turns to Timothy and says, "You, therefore..." Timothy himself seems to have been a timid, easily intimidated person, and Paul doesn't want him to be frightened away or scandalized by the things that are happening. He doesn't want Timothy to follow the example of those who've been ashamed and have abandoned him. Maybe Timothy's been bullied and pushed around in the past; in any case, Paul wants him to stand firm with confidence in his calling to preach God's Word.
The fundamental thing, the foundation for everything else that he's going to say in this passage, is in verse one: "be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." The verb is passive, so "be strengthened," as it reads in the ESV, is clearer than the NIV's "be strong." Paul is not telling Timothy to do something but to receive something. We can't, by an act of the will or by sheer determination, be strengthened in grace. This is not something that depends on our own efforts and ability. But it's also not something we just wait for passively. We are involved in the process (otherwise, why would Paul bother to give this exhortation at all?). It won't do any good to sit at home in front of the TV and say, "I'm waiting to receive strength from the Lord before I attempt anything." Timothy can't strengthen himself in grace, but he can put himself in a place to receive strength. He can put himself in the way of receiving strength from the Lord.
This strength has two characteristics: it comes to us by grace, and that grace is found in Jesus Christ. It comes as a gift, something for which we are unworthy; and this gracious gift is found in Christ. It's source is outside of ourselves and we are unworthy of it, in fact are powerless to take hold of it for ourselves. We can be strengthened in grace only by coming to God with empty hands, poor in spirit, confessing our poverty and neediness.
That's the main idea in this passage: "be strengthened in grace." We don't have strength in ourselves. Paul isn't offering a self-help program: "you're stronger than you realize; you just need to learn how to draw upon your inner resources." Paul's not telling Timothy to toughen up and be strong. He's telling Timothy to come to Jesus to receive strength. We become strong by acknowledging our weakness and then coming to Jesus, crying to Him for help. That's the lesson Paul himself learned, as he describes in 2 Corinthians 12. He had prayed repeatedly to have a problem removed, something he saw as a hindrance to his ministry, something that got in the way of his full functioning. It seemed clear that he could do so much more as an apostle if he was functioning at 100 percent. But the answer he received was "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness" (v. 9).
As he receives strength, Paul wants Timothy to use his gifts to build up the Church: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others" (v. 2). Timothy is to equip others for the work of ministry by passing on to them the teaching he received from Paul. One of the great temptations we face is the temptation to use our gifts selfishly, to use them for our own sense of fulfillment or to boost our pride. But the gifts we've been given are not ours to use as we like. We've been entrusted with them for the benefit of others and the good of the Church. Whatever gifts we have are not really ours at all. They don't belong to us. God has entrusted them to us for building up the Church, for equipping others to live obedient and fruitful lives as followers of Jesus Christ.
Of course, it may be tempting at this point to say, "well, Timothy was a leader, so he needed to be strengthened in grace to carry out his ministry; what I do in the church is not such a big deal." But think, for a moment, about what we're called to do as disciples of Jesus Christ. We're called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We're called to bear one another's burdens, to pray for each other, to help those in need. We're called to help others, often in ways that are costly and inconvenient (think of Onesiphorus and those in Asia who ended up throwing in the towel), and to do so without resentment in a genuine spirit of self-emptying. Do you feel up to this? Do you really think you can do this without being strengthened in grace?
Paul goes on to tell Timothy to "endure suffering and hardship." Peter says, in his first letter, "do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though some strange thing were happening to you" (4:12). Paul and Barnabas strengthened new disciples by "exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). For Paul, exercising his gifts did not lead to success and prosperity. It led to suffering, and the same will be true for Timothy. If we want to survive a life of discipleship over the long term we need to accept the likelihood that obedience will bring us into situations that we wouldn't choose for ourselves. If we're not armed with this expectation, suffering will take us by surprise and we'll be scandalized; many people end up turning away from the Lord when they encounter difficulties and opposition. "I didn't know it would be like this; God isn't taking care of me; He's not holding up His end of the bargain."
So the first temptation, in connection with our gifts, is to use them selfishly for our own benefit. But then, when we use them and suffer, the next temptation is not to use them at all. "This just isn't worth it. No one really cares anyway." But the point of using our gifts to serve one another is not to be successful, or even to see the fruit of our work. Sometimes we're enabled to see fruit and sometimes we're not; think of Jeremiah preaching year after year, with no measurable success. But the point is to please our "commanding officer" (v. 4). The benefits, the real benefits, lie in the future, a "victor's crown" (v. 5) and a "share in the crops" (v. 6). Paul is pointing forward to the time when we will see Jesus face to face. He's saying that in the light of all this it is worth it to endure suffering. We are following in Jesus' footsteps and He is with us.
Even if we aren't suffering right now, other members of the body of Christ are. We are connected with Jesus' sufferings and with the suffering of others in the body, both past and present. Paul tells the Colossians, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (1:24). He's not saying that Christ's sufferings are insufficient to redeem His people. He's saying that when Christians suffer they do so in communion with Christ as members of His body. Paul's sufferings are part of the suffering of Christ's body. When we are suffering we feel alienated and alone, and we combat this feeling by speaking to ourselves and reminding ourselves of the truth that we are not alone. We're connected, in Christ, with all those throughout the history of the Church who have suffered because they belonged to Jesus..
This leads to the third thing Paul says here: exercise discipline, or self control. "No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules" (vv. 4-5). The Christian life is not a life of following our impulses, doing what we feel like doing. Some teachings on sanctification seem to suggest that God will take over our lives in such a way that discipleship becomes effortless, that we just hand ourselves over to Him and He does the rest. If you read things written by Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, you might get that impression at times. He went through a period when he was overwhelmed by the burdens of the work and by all the demands he was facing. He was burning out and uncertain that he could keep going. But then his whole outlook changed. He wrote to his sister, describing his intense efforts to grow stronger in faith: "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. As I read I saw it all! ‘If we believe not, he abideth faithful.' I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, ‘I will never leave you'. ‘Ah, there is rest!' I thought, ‘I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me -- never to leave me, never to fail me?'" (Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, J. Hudson Taylor, pp. 213-214).
After this, he talked often about the rest of faith, and his favorite hymn was "Jesus I am Resting, Resting." People observed him, in the middle of immensely difficult situations, singing to himself, "Jesus I am resting, resting, in the joy of what Thou art; I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart." It changed his whole outlook, and sometimes when he talked he could give the impression that he was passive, just resting in the Lord, that he was no longer expending any effort and that everything was now being done for him. In reality he continued to work hard and spent much time in God's Word and in prayer. But he did it with a strong conviction of Jesus' constant presence and a confidence that he was fully accepted in Christ and was standing in grace. To get an accurate picture, we need to look at his words in the context of his life. He was doing the very thing Paul tells Timothy to do, coming to Christ to be strengthened.
Hudson Taylor, for the remainder of his life, exercised intense effort in following Christ and preaching the gospel, but he did it with an awareness of his full acceptance in Christ, which gave him strength to do the things that had previously exhausted him. The strength is not in us, but as we come to Christ and receive strength, we go on to take ourselves in hand, refusing to do some things and choosing to do others. I had a co-worker who was often overwhelmed. He had young children, worked full time and also taught piano in the evenings in addition to leading the choir in his church. Once when we were talking he complained that he didn't have time to read his Bible each day, that he was just too busy. I knew, from previous conversations, that he was in the habit of watching a fair bit of TV every night, so I suggested that it would be worthwhile to cut out some of that to make time for Bible reading, and that this would feed his spirit in a way that TV would not do. I don't know whether he ever did it, but it was clear that this had never occurred to him. To be strengthened in the Lord, as Paul calls us to do here, involves making choices in our daily lives that will put us in a place to receive strength, as Hudson Taylor continued to do after he had his great realization of the importance of resting in faith.
Then, having said all this, Paul ties it together by saying "Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this" (v. 7). Reflect, think on all this, not because you'll eventually figure it all out. It's not that by our intense mental effort we're able to sort through everything necessary for a life of discipleship. We listen attentively to God's Word and He gives us insight. We come to Him waiting to hear from Him, and He speaks the Words we need to hear at that point. That's what happened to Hudson Taylor. He had been living and growing as a Christian for years, but he came to a point where he needed a greater sense of rest and of peace. He was near the breaking point, but as he was listening attentively and expectantly to God's Word his eyes were opened and he was able to see things in a way that he had never seen before. And it changed his life. "Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this."
It's the same thing that we saw earlier about receiving strength. We can put ourselves in the way of being strengthened, but we can't make ourselves strong. We can reflect on God's Word, but we don't have the capacity within us to understand apart from the insight He gives. "It is God who gives understanding. The most intelligent man needs more and more of this gift. If he who gave the revelation in the word does not give the understanding in the heart, we are nothing" (Matthew Henry, Commentary).
I recently read a biography of the Scottish preacher Robert Murray M'Cheyne. He died before his thirtieth birthday and was in frail health for much of his life, but he knew how to come to Christ for strength, and he taught his congregation to do the same thing. He put together a Bible reading calendar, because he knew the importance of coming to Christ in His Word daily, not just sporadically when we feel the need. I've been using this calendar for many years, and it's the best one I've seen. Here's something M'Cheyne wrote to a younger minister who was just starting out in ministry: "You read your Bible regularly, of course; but do try and understand it, and still more, to feel it. Read more parts than one at a time. For example, if you are reading Genesis, read a psalm also; or, if you are reading Matthew, read a small bit of an epistle also. Turn the Bible into prayer. Thus, if you were reading the 1st Psalm, spread the Bible on the chair before you, and kneel, and pray, ‘O Lord, give me the blessedness of the man,' etc. ‘Let me not stand in the counsel of the ungodly,' etc. This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and of learning to pray" (The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Kindle Location 792). If we do this kind of attentive, prayerful reading of Scripture, and seek to order our lives in obedience to what we read, we'll be putting ourselves in the way of receiving strength and understanding from the Lord.
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