Why We Preach The Word - 2 Timothy 4:1-5

You have your Bibles, whether you open them to Second Timothy Chapter four, Second Timothy Chapter four. Question we've been answering today is why we preach the word. Why we preach the word, not why we use the Bible. There is a distinction. You can use the Bible and not preach the word. People do it all the time. I've done it myself. Heymen, I've done it myself. And every preacher who's done this and has had to learn how to do this has at one point or another used the Bible rather than preach the Bible. And when we look at the Book of Two Timothy, it's important to understand that that's the essence of Paul's message to Timothy. If you look at it, it occurs in every chapter of the letter. So we'll be looking at chapter four, verses one through five. But go back with me to chapter one, Two Timothy, chapter one, and look at verse thirteen. Now, as we do this, I want you to understand something. When Paul is writing this, there is no New Testament. Just try to wrap your mind around that there is no New Testament. Yet there are these letters that are circulating, these letters that are being written, these letters that he's writing, But there is no New Testament. There is no gathered, authoritative New Testament canon on which the church can rely and to which the church can point. You still have the apostles and their authority being exercised. You still have these truths that are collected, but they're being trans minute verbally. And also you have apostles who are being slaughtered, they're being martyred. Think about what that must have felt like. Think about being a person who says, what happens if all the apostles are gone, what happens to the message of the Gospel. Then there are already threats to the Gospel. I mean Paul's writing, for example, to the church at Corinth, because there are threats to the Gospel. John and his epistle and his epistles is dealing head on with gnosticism that's coming against the Gospel message. So there are threats from the outside, threats from the inside, and we don't have the New Testament yet. And in that context, Paul writes this to young Timothy from prison, by the way, where he is well aware that he is about to be martyred as well. Verse thirteen, chapter one. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit and trusted to you. So we have a pattern of sound words and a good deposit entrusted to you. He's saying, guard this. Look at chapter two, verse one. You, then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, in trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others. Also this has to continue on go to chapter three. I look at verse fourteen. But as for you, continue and what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scriptures breathe out by God and profitable for teaching, reproved, correction, training in righteousness, that the Man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. And now we come to our passage, and in our passage, this call to young Timothy reaches a crescendo 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 and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, 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. As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. Amen, Allelujah, Praise the Lord. Preach the word. Preach the Word again. There is a difference between using the scriptures, using the Bible, and preaching the word. Oftentimes you've heard of either expository preaching or expositional reaching, and essentially what's being referred to there is preaching that preaches the Bible verse by verse. Right, that's one aspect of it. That we're preaching the Bible verse by verse, but with a view toward understanding and ascertaining the author's original intended meaning in its original context and then applying that to our context. That's what exposition is about. You can you can use the Bible and you can go verse by verse and you can read a verse and misinterpret it, and then read the other verse and misinterpret it, and then read the next verse and misinterpret it. And you've preached a sermon that was verse by verse, Amen. Right. And then you can sit down and you can say I've preached the text and you know I preached the verse by verse right. Let me let me let me give you an example from right here in two Timothy, go back to chapter two. I started uh preaching when I was a much younger man, much much much younger man. Started preaching when I was twenty one. And when you're twenty one and you know you're a preacher, people will always invite you to come preach to young people. Heymen, you would go practice on young people, which, when you think about it, terrible idea, but I did. I got to go practice on young people. And when when you've reached to young people, one of the things that you're always talking about young people is purity, is sexual purity, right, especially in the day and age in which we live. That the distance between when we reach maturity right in terms of physical physiological maturity, and when we get married. That window used to be very small, right. People would go through puberty and people would get married, you know, somewhere right after that time. The window was very small. Now that window is huge, right, I mean we're talking. You know, people will go through puberty and their teens and then now linate twenties, early thirties get married. That's a long time. And so there's a lot of people, you know, who are dealing with and wrestling with sexual purity. And so oftentimes you get saying Timothy two twenty two, So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Flea youthful passions. I can't tell you how many times I used that verse to preach on sexual purity for young people. Right, flee from your youthful passions, pursue righteousness. I mean I would just hammer that man, small problem. That verse has that much to do with sexual purity, zero zip, zilch n a nothing, nothing as just nothing, even if you continue on have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. But in everything, what is he talking about? What passions is he talking about? Here? He's talking about our and controversies over theological matters. And that verse has absolutely nothing to do with sexual purity. Nothing. But I more than once ripped it, kicking and screaming out of its context and made it bend to my will, which was to make these young people think twice about being impure sexually. I was using the Bible, but I wasn't preaching oh yes, smiling one of stepping in. So that's what I mean there. So when we get here to chapter four and we're talking about preaching the word, I mean preaching the Biblical text in its context, understanding the author's intended meaning. Not what I would like for the author to mean, not some surface level understanding of what the words are saying, but what is the author communicating to his audience? What? What is that timeless theological truth? And then how do I extract that timeless theological truth and apply it to this audience today? So that what God spoke, then God can speak to us. Now, Amen, that's that's what we're referring to here. And why why here's the question, why should we be committed to that? Why should why should that be our pursuit and our passion? Why should we do that instead of trying to do you know, pop psychology from the pulpit, right, But why why should we do that? And instead of health, wealth, prosperity preaching? Well, why should we do that? Instead of you know, whatever the topic is of the day, and you know, make that our goal or you know, some social justice our goal, or such a why why? Why? Why? Why? Why? You answer to that question lies in this passage number one. We could she commit to it because it is our sacred charge. Look at what Paul says here 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 and by his kingdom, preach the word. What's interesting about that is your second Timothy is one of the most intimate letters that you'll find in the New Testament. One of the most intimate letters, one of the most intimate personal letters that you'll find in the New Testament. Back up with me. For example, Chapter one, verse one Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus to Timothy, my beloved child. By the way, Timothy's not his biological son, He's not his adopted son. He's his son in the faith, and he refers to him as my beloved child. Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Listen to this. I thank God, whom I serve as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience. As I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day, as I remember your tears they shed tears together, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well knows his mama and his grandma. For this reason, I remind you to fan into laying the gift of God which is in you, through the laying on of my hands. It's his ordination, for God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but a power and love and self control, personal intimate, informal even And yet when he gets to the apex of his letter, when he gets to the chrescendo of his letter, when he gets to the point he says, 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 and by his kingdom. This is official, formal language. This is a serious, sacred calling. And Paul is saying, I'm not saying this is your friend. I'm not saying this is your brother in Christ. I'm not saying this is your mentor. I'm saying this, as Paul the apostle, this is serious. There's a picture that I have in my mind of this, of this kind of seriousness in the context of an intimate relationship. And it's a picture of something that's happened multiple times. But you have a high ranking military officer whose son or grandson is commissioned, and this high ranking military officer has the privilege of commissioning his son or his grandson and putting his rank insignia on him. It's a wonderful thing, right, It's a moving thing. But imagine this. You are a general or an admiral, and you're penning the insignia on your grandson and its wartime, and all of a sudden, it's not just this warm, fuzzy feeling of a grandfather having the privilege of welcoming his grandson into military service like his grandfather and maybe his father did. But you're also a general who's saying I'm putting you in charge of men in a time of war. Not just your granddad. I'm your general, and I'm sending you to fight and maybe even to die. That's what verse one is. That's what verse one is. In fact, remember in every chapter we saw this picture of Paul calling Timothy to preserve and proclaim the gospel, right this pattern of sound words. You know something else you see in every chapter. Not even gonna say what it is, I just want you to see it. Go back to chapter one in verse eight, Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. But share in suffering for the Gospel by the power of God. Go to chapter two, verse three, share and suffering as a good soldier in Christ Jesus. Go to chapter three. Look at verse ten. You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecure cuts and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium, at Lystra, which persecutions I endured. Yet from all of them the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted now at the end of our passage. In chapter four, verse five, as for you always be sober minded, endure suffering. In every chapter he calls Young Timothy to preserve and proclaim the Gospel, and in every chapter he calls them to endure suffering and endure heartship in everyone. This is the sacred calling. This is not a plaything. It's serious. Secondly, we preach the word not just because it's our sacred calling. We preach it because it's always relevant, and it's the only way to always be relevant. Verse to preach the word, be ready in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. It's the only way to be relevant and authoritative. That's it. I told you. I started doing this when I was twenty one, and in that period of my life, when you're a younger preacher and you're not standing up in front of people with a bunch of gray hair, there is always this sense of intimidation. Right, Who am I, as a twenty one year old to stand up here in front of people who are thirty, forty, fifty, seventy eighty years old and walking with the Lord, you know, longer than I've been alive. Who am I to stand up here and do this? The answer is, I'm nobody. There's an old song, gospel song, and the hook in that song is I'm just a nobody trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody. That's all. I'm grateful for those years, especially for me, especially for those of you who don't know me or my story. I didn't grow up in the church. I didn't grow up around Christians or Christianity. I was born and raised in south central Los Angeles, California to a single teenage Buddhist mother. Never heard the Gospels of my first year at university. So when I'm preaching at twenty one, not only am I young at that time, but I hadn't been in the faith all that long. I hadn't grown up around Christians or Christianity. I was not standing up there because of my wealth of knowledge and my pedigree. All I had was the scriptures. And in that instance, if you're committed to preaching the Word of God, it doesn't matter how old you are, how much experience you have. If you are faithful to the text, preach the word, you'll be ready in season. You'll be ready out of season. You can reprove and rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Do all of those things. You can rebuke anybody. Why, because it's the Word of God. It's not you. Like I said yesterday, I don't write the mail. I just deliver it. And if we're preaching the Word, that authority is there, and it's clear, it's consistent, and it cannot be questioned. And so we marry ourselves to the text. We marry ourselves to what saith the Lord. We do not make ourselves the central focus, but we make the Word of God the central focus. Thirdly, the beginning of verse three, First the word, because we'll be tempted not to, we must because we'll be tempted not to. Verse three, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. I'm often asked a question, and especially because you know, we spent the last decade living in Zambia, but before we moved to Lusaka, we were in Houston, North Houston, and in Houston people are always asking questions about Smile and Joel as Joel osteing. For those of you who who who don't know, I mean, they just are. I mean, he's there. You know, their church bought the arena that the Rockets used to play in and they fill it up for multiple services. And you know, him and a bunch of others who are quite frankly false teachers have huge churches, ginormous churches, and young Christians would ask all the time why, like why is it that there are people who are false teachers, who are false prophets, who abuse the word of God, who preached to tens of thousands, Why why is it? And they are faithful Bible preaching pastors toiling away and maybe they got you know, fifty or one hundred folks. By the way, the average church in America is seventy five members. It's the average church in America, seventy five members. And they're like, why, why, why is it that people are just flocking to these false teachers. And my answer quite simply is because the Bible is true. Look at verse three again, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. That's why. And if we're not committed to preaching the word, here's what happens. What happens is we look around and we watch these churches that are growing like weeds because they are, You're growing like weeds and cancer. And if we're not careful, we'll begin to try to shave off the edges of our message, shave off the offensive parts, so that maybe we too can appeal to just a little bit larger demographic. Maybe people don't like hearing about sin, and so maybe we can just pull back on that a little bit. Maybe people don't like things that are controversial, and so maybe we can pull back on that a little bit. Maybe people don't like longer sermons, so maybe we can pull back on that a little bit. Maybe people don't like a lot of theology and doctrine, and they just they want more psychologizing from the purpose. So maybe we can just pull back on the and so we just shave off the edges here and there, and after a while we are the ones court tickling years. Because what you win them with is what you win them to. And if we're not committed up front to a ministry of exposition, to a ministry of preaching the word and trusting the Lord to do the work, we will be tempted to compromise. As a church planter, I can tell you church in Houston, it feels good when more people come, It really does. Do you know what doesn't feel good? What doesn't feel good is when there are people who come and they say, hey, pastor, you know, we love you, we appreciate you, but you know, we've decided to go down the road and they'll say something like the Word of God here has enriched us, and it's blessed us. We've grown more than we've ever grown before. Put the music down there, or the children's program over there, or the light show over there, And that didn't feel good at all. That when we're committed to preaching the word. We stay the course. We stay the course. Fourthly, these people don't just accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, but they turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths, under off into mens. There are myths out there. What's the anecdote to the myth? The truth? The truth? And agadn't remember the context. Paul is talking to Timothy in the midst of a time and in the midst of an error, where they don't have the New Testament compiled yet, where the apostles are being scattered, where the church is being scattered, where the message just it's one generation from just being extinguished. There are people who are from the inside are bringing false doctrine and they're having to be confronted. There are people from the outside who are bringing the persecution, and they're having to be confronted. And in the midst of all of this, while people are having this tendency to wander off into myths, it's important that we are committed to holding firm to that pattern of sound words and preaching the word, so that the myth is always confronted with the truth, so that we can say that's a lie. And by the way, that's not an easy thing to do because sometimes those myths, for example, are sincerely held cultural beliefs. It's one interesting thing about doing missions and cross cultural ministry. We left Houston in twenty fifteen again moved to South central Africa to Lusaka, Zambia, the capital city there in Zambia, and it's really interesting to be in a different culture in a different part of the world and to have to sift through what things are biblical and what things are cultural sometimes to even discover our own myths that have crept in. And the only way we do that is through a commitment to the Word of God, through holding firm to the Word of God and allowing the Word of God to speak with all authority on all issues and all subjects. Because they're not the only ones prone to wander off into mens prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave God. I love, here's my heart, Lord, tak and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. We're all prone to wander, by the way. That's why it's so important for the people of God to gather in the House of God before the Word of God. We got because we're all prone to wander off intimates. And that's why those of us who have this charge must keep this charge, so that we, ourselves and those who hear us, can combat those ments and can be called back to truth again and again and again. Finally, we must preach the word, because it's the only way to remain faithful. Verse five. There's a contrast here verses three and four. Three and four. The time is coming when people will not endure a sound doctrine. They'll have itching ears. They'll accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. They'll turn away from listening to the truth and wander off in the myths. As for you, as for you, By the way, we've seen this before. We get chapter three and verse fourteen. I ready for you before verse fourteen. But as for you verse fourteen, ask for you. Chapter three, verse one, he starts off with this long list of people who will have a form of godliness but deny its power, and then he says, but ask for you now. Chapter four he says, ask for you. Always be sober minded and your suffering, do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. In other words, be faithful, be faithful in the midst of opposition, in the midst of difficulty, in the midst of your own personal weakness, Be faithful, and nothing will hold our feet to the fire. In that regard, like committing to preaching the biblical texts in its context, committing week in and week out to studying the words so that we know the biblical text, so that we know what the biblical author is saying, so that we know what that timeless theological truth is, and then committing week in and week out to communicating that truth to God's people, believing that it is the greatest gift that we can give. Notice how He puts it as for you, always be sober minded. Always be sober minded. You have to be so that you don't shave off the edges and tickle ears, and so that you don't wander off in the mins and you're suffering. You have to because when you refuse to do these things, you'll be called names. You're the narrow minded one. You're the one who's putting God in a box. You're the strident one. You're the one who's always wanting to fight and go to war with people. As COSTI said, I do I don't like fighting, okay, a little bit, but not all the time. I don't want to be at war with people. I really don't. But it's inevitable when you're committed to the Word of God and people around you are tickling ears and wandering off into mins, it's inevitable. There's a famous Christian rapper who wants addressed me in a podcast, and some friends of mine sent it to me right that this person had addressed me in this podcast, and I was like, I don't, like, I don't what do you what happened? I had preached a sermon. I had preached a sermon Acts chapter seventeen and Paul mars Hill, you know, or the Areopagus, and I'm making a statement about him being faithful, about him having an opportunity to be, you know, in the midst of a place there in Athens. That would have been like, you know, the most popular TV show of his day, or the most popular I think, I said, like the Oprah Winfrey Show. Yeah, that shows you how long ago it was, right. It was like he was you know, he was invited to Oprah And you know, when you're invited to a place like that, there's a tendency to compromise so that you get invited back and at I guess whatever this particular person. People were coming at this particular person for some of the compromise in their music and some of the decisions that they were making. And so the assumption was that I was trying to call this person out in my sermon. And I said two things. Number one, anybody who knows anything about me knows I have no problem naming names. I'm just saying, and it's biblical. If we keep reading in chapter four, one of my favorite verses is a verse fourteen. Alexander the copper Smith did me great harm. The Lord will pay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. I love that Alexander, not just Alexander, Alexander the copper Smith. You know, the one got the shop around there on Main Street. Yeah, that dude, right him? Yeah? Him names names all throughout this letter. I have no problem naming names. So if I wanted to talk about this person, I would have named the name. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to say is what my grandma used to say, you throw a rock, a hit dog will always holler. In other words, that person was the hit dog. I wasn't throwing the rock at him, but he hit him, and that's between him and God. But there's this whole controversy in this old you know, now vote he's a big meanie and you know and all this. You know, I don't like that. I don't like when people come at me, when people come at my family, people come at my kids, they come at my kids. He's so reminded endure suffering. We live in a world where, first of all, I believe that God created the world. Amen. Not only do I believe God created the world, I believe that he did it in six days, six literal twenty four hour days, and that it happened somewhere between six and ten thousand years ago. I believe that. I believe that. I believe that there's people who think I'm an idiot, because I believe that if people call me names, because I believe that I speak on college campuses at times, and you know, there are people and they're like, you know, it's just it's just you know, you do this and you sound like an intelligent or taking that person here, you are you know, you believe that the world is just. Yes, I actually do. I don't like the way people look at me when they find that out endure it. You believe in biblical roles for men and women. You're in Neanderthal. You believe that there's just whether you call them sexiest or gender doesn't matter, just two of them. You're narrow minded biggot marriage between a man and a woman. I don't care what. But Bergerfeld says again, when these are the things you believe, and all you're doing is preaching the word, all you're doing is agreeing with God. All you're doing is saying, when you read this in this biblical theological context, here's the timeless truth. When you apply it to our day and our time, here are the implications of that timeless truth. That's all in their suffering, you're being faithful and you're having to do in their suffering. It's minuscule here compared to other parts of the world. It's not like our brothers and sisters, and for eple in Nigeria who are being slaughtered by the thousands, being called names, it's meaningless in light of real persecution and suffering. And then do the work of an evangelist, be faithful, do the work of an evangelist. And to me, this is the most important piece, because what happens is when we shave off the edges so that we can appease people, what we end up doing is not presenting to them the one thing that they need, which is the unadulterated message of the Gospel. We're not saying to people. There's a God who created the world and everything in it, and he created man and his own image, and he gave man a law to keep, and man failed. The first man failed, And because the first man failed, all of us fell in him and we became enemies of God. Sin entered the world, and that sin was transmitted to all of us, and we sin, all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. God is holy and he is righteous, and he is just, and he must punish sin, all sin everywhere. And you are a sinner who does deserves the wrath of God to fall upon you. God should have killed you in your sleep last night because of what you thought, said and did on yesterday. But he was merciful and he didn't. But one day he will. And your only hope is for your sin to be paid for. Every other religion in the world says you need to have a religious experience and then do more good things than bad things and hope for the best when you die. And it doesn't work. Why Number one because you can't be good and number two because they don't have an answer for the sin that you committed before your religious experience. We have an answer. Christ died for sin, once for all, but just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God. We have an answer. All we, like sheep, had gone astray, each of us had turned to his own way. But God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us. All we have an answer. The answer is the act of passive obedience of Christ. In his active obedience, he kept the whole law the god man who was born of a virgin, so that he did not inherit Adam's sin, kept the whole law perfectly so that he might impute his righteousness to us, And that, in his passive obedience, took our sin upon himself and had it nailed to a tree. He died the death that we owe. And because of that this is the only answer that man has. Nowhere else is your sin problem taken care of. But in Christ, God can be, as Paul says in Romans three, both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus. Therefore, repent, flee to Christ for forgiveness of your sin, and to be saved from the wrath to come. Folks, that we must do the work of an evangelists, because that's the only way to line fulfill our ministry. If we shave any of that off, then we're condemning people. We're condemning people. I don't like fighting, and I said, kind of right. I will fight for the Gospel. I will fight for the cause of Christ. I will fight. I'll fight for souls. I'll fight. I'll fight you so that you don't go to heaven and so that you don't go to Hell. Rather, I'm gonna fight you so that you don't go to heaven. I'll fight you so that you don't go to Hell. I will. I will war with you intellectually as long as I have to, and as long as you're willing, so that you can hear the message of the God. If I'm watching you and spiritually you're heading headlong for a cliff, I am not only going to yell out to you. Turn around. If I can get to you, I'm gonna grab you. And the reason that we have to commit to preaching the Word is because that's the only source of this truth. And if our ministry is built on anything else, anything less, than we find ourselves in that middle territory where we're tickling years and selling myths so that people are dying comfortable deaths on their way to hell. We must be faithful. We must preach the Word.