9/22/24 2 Timothy 2:1-10 “Totally Awesome!”

19 Sep 9/22/24 2 Timothy 2:1-10 “Totally Awesome!”

9/22/24    2 Timothy 2:1-10       “Totally Awesome!”

As I was studying our passage for this week, I got one of those random thoughts that occasionally pop into my head.  If the Apostle Paul were alive today, what would he be like?  Have you ever thought about that?  I really don’t think that he would be like Billy Graham because Paul was a much more ‘in your face’ type of guy.  With Paul, there was no such thing as even coming close to political correctness.  If he lived in this country, I think he would have centered around Washington D.C.  He would have his work cut out there as there are many places in that area where Christianity is under 30%.   I doubt if he would have any marches on Washington.  Instead he would have marched right into the capitol and said his peace.  He would also have marched into every Christian center or headquarters and told them what to do also.  I would guess that he wouldn’t even have to change his message that much from 2000 years ago.  No matter how he cut it, he would have considered this country, this world to be a major mission field.  Today, we are going to talk about this letter to Timothy where Paul is giving instructions for both then and now.  Let’s see if we can learn a little from one of the greatest writers ever.

Steve Shepherd takes us down memory lane a little as he talks about the 33 miners from Chile who were trapped ½ mile beneath the surface of the earth a few years ago.  Do you remember?  They spent 69 days there before their rescue.  This is about one man, Mario Sepulveda, who came up a changed man.  He said he buried 40 years of his old life in that mine.  I would say that most of them were changed but that is another story.  During the times he spent down there, he saw both good and evil.  He said, “I was with God, and I was with the devil.  They fought, and God won.”  Mario said he grabbed God’s hand and never doubted that he would be rescued.  Here was a man who remembered God.

As we begin today, I would like to say that I’m not going to preach much on the first part of this reading.  I wanted to read it because it is just so rich.  Paul begins by telling Timothy to be strong in the grace of Christ.  I think that this is just basic Christianity.  We need to be strong in the grace of Jesus.  One of the things that we lack in our society is confidence in Jesus Christ.

I want to spend a minute here because this is so important.  Jesus is exactly who He said He was, is.  He is God.  He is all powerful.  He is all knowing.  He is all everything.  He is not a wish granter, as we talked about last week and before.  He can’t do that because Jesus is in charge of everything and everything must be in balance.  He has to balance what He does here with what He does over there.  If things don’t balance for Him, He may not answer your prayers the way you want.  We really can’t understand this very well because we can’t see everything.  But never fear because Jesus can.  When He doesn’t answer your prayers the way you want, it doesn’t mean that He doesn’t care or love you.  He cares you more than you will ever know in this world.  You need to be satisfied in the grace of Jesus Christ.

Then Paul goes on to tell us how to be a soldier in Christ, how to be an athlete for Christ, and how to be a farmer for Christ.  All of these are fairly simple and there is a sermon here.  First you obey your commanding officer who is Jesus.  You compete according to the rules which are the Bible.  And you get a share of the crops which is our home in heaven.  This is very simple and he states it in a way that all can understand it.  Then he wraps it all us in verse 7 where he says that if you don’t understand after thinking about it a little, the Lord will give you the insight if you are faithful.  What a wonderful thought!  He will help you to believe.

We live in a world where there are many who don’t believe in Jesus.  I see this a lot on my online services.  Many people give Him a little lip service and I would hate to be in their shoes when it comes to the time of judgment.  All of this makes it hard on us to understand and obey our Lord.  I think what this means is that we are to persevere.  We are to keep going as best we can and Jesus will help us to make sense out of it later.  It isn’t our place to know the reasons for everything.  That is why we have this faith in Jesus.

Then Paul tells Timothy to remember Jesus Christ.  I think that a person’s memory capacity is really one of the core reasons that we should all believe in Jesus.  We have sitting on our shoulders one of the greatest computers/machines that has ever been made plus we can remember things.  Have you ever heard about people who never forget anything?  They can tell you exactly what happened and when it happened.  They don’t have the capability to forget.  Well, I’m not one of those people.  I forget stuff all the time and I’m sure that many of you are in the same boat.  And it seems to get worse as we age but I’m getting off topic.  We remember all sorts of things, sometimes things we don’t want to remember.

Paul is telling us to remember Jesus.  Jesus was all God until He was born and then He became part human and part God at the same time.  If you think about it that is quite a feat in itself.  This part God, part man grew up from a lad to a man in a normal fashion just like anyone else.  We remember all the teachings He gave us like the ones from the Sermon on the Mount.  These were His way of giving us something almost like the Ten Commandments.  He told us how to live our lives.  He told us what would happen if we choose to live our lives without Him.  There are a lot of warnings and unfortunately, so many choose to ignore them or simply disregard them.  He does all this because He loves us so much.

But the greatest thing for us to remember today is that you can be with Him at all times.  He has given you a way to talk with Him.  He has given you prayer.  He has given you the ability to ask Him to live inside you at all times.  He has given you the ability to love Him and to love others.  You are to remember that if you don’t have Jesus in your heart, then you are unable to love anyone else.  He has given you love which you should cherish.

Remember that He has given us all our senses like feeling, touching, seeing and hearing.  Sometimes when we get older, some of these senses start to fail.  Remember that Jesus gave them all to us in the first place.  Then we can remember and be grateful that we have been so blest to have these senses at all.  God gave them to us so that we can be better people.  When we are better people then we will serve Him more.

I would like you to remember Jesus this week as you go about your life, whatever that is.  Remember that He made all this possible.  I could go on and on all hour about some of the wonders that He has provided for us.  What we need is a sure fire way to remember Jesus all the time.  If you have a prayer life, ask Him about it.  If you don’t, start a prayer time and ask Him about it.  I’m sure that He will have a different answer for all of us.

So we are to remember Jesus Christ and that He descended from David.  Now you may ask the question, “Why is this so important?”  It is a little hard for us to realize the importance of this some 20 centuries later but God gave His word that someone from the line of David would come and be the Savior of the world.  This should be a reassurance that when God makes a promise, He keeps that promise no matter how far-fetched it may seem.

What this means to us is that Jesus will be with you all the time as He has promised!  Once again, this means that He will help you in His ways and not necessarily your ways and you should thank and praise the Lord for that.  Just think of the mess this world would be in if we ran things or maybe we do run things because the world is such a mess!  Anyway, when there is a death, He is there.  When there is a birth, He is there.  He is there in all the hard times like divorce, health problems and any other place where Satan has started problems.  He is there when we get promoted, when we get married and when we live according to the Gospel.  He is there to be with you, to help you and to guide you.  This is what His promise means and He has never gone back on a promise.

Then I want you to remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.  This is what I call a mouthful.  As Jesus was traveling on this earth, He was continually doing miracles.  I’m going to name some of the miracles that Jesus performed beginning with being born of a virgin.  Just in case you haven’t realized this yet, this is impossible in our world.  Only God could make something like this happen.  Here are some more so hang onto your hats.  Jesus changed water to wine.  He healed the royal official’s son, healed the man possessed by a demon in Capernaum, healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and healed the sick in the evening.  He caught a large number of fish, healed the leper, the centurion’s servant, a paralyzed man, a man with a withered hand, and He raised a widow’s son from the dead just to prove who He was.

Now if you still need convincing remember how He calmed the stormy sea and his disciples were in awe again.  So He went on to heal the demon-possessed man at Gerasene, healed a woman with internal bleeding, raised the daughter of Jairus and then healed two blind men, a mute man who was possessed by a demon and a man who had been crippled for 38 years.

Now we all know how extravagant Jesus is and He was just getting started.  Then Jesus goes and feeds 5000 men and their families with next to nothing just before He decides to walk on water.  If you don’t believe at this point, I would like to see you walk on water.   He heals many at the Sea of Galilee, heals a demon possessed girl, heals a deaf man of a speech impediment before he feeds 4000 more and their families.  You see the people were hurting and hungry in those days also, but once again I digress.

He healed a blind man in Bethsaida, a man born blind and a boy possessed by a demon.  He caught a fish with a coin in its mouth and healed a blind and mute man who was possessed by a demon.  He healed a woman with an 18-year sickness, healed a man with dropsy, healed 10 men suffering from leprosy before He performed one of His most will-known feats of bringing Lazarus back to life.  He is still not done as He heals Bartimaeus of blindness, He withered a fig tree that had produced not fruit and He restored a severed ear without massive surgery or press coverage.

Then He proved Himself to be the Savior that was prophesied in the Old Testament as He was resurrected for the Dead.  He still wasn’t done as He traveled about showing Himself to His disciples.  While He was in this state, He helped the disciples to catch 153 fish.  I think the significance of the number 153 is that is a lot of fish for a resurrected man to catch.  Then in His final chapter of this part of the story, He ascends back to Heaven.  And this is not a complete list of miracles.  He did many, many more and He continues to do so today!  However, I don’t want you to leave here today with any doubts that Jesus was and is God who walked on this earth.  He was everything He said He was and He still is today.  That is why you can trust Him and trust Him and trust Him.  He is the real deal and more.  Praise the Lord!

But He is still not done as He lives in us today.  Paul goes on to say, “This is my Gospel.”  Let me tell you today that ‘this is my Gospel!’  This is your Gospel!  Claim it!  Grab it and don’t ever let go.  Every time you read from this book; it is a personal message to you.  It is your book.  It affects your life.  It is no wonder that all these other religions and governments don’t want us to have access to this book.  They know how powerful it is.  Grab this book and read it and read it and read it!  You will never regret the time you spend in your Gospel.  And if you don’t know Jesus as your personal Savior today, then confess your sins to Him and ask Him to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior.  You will never regret this either.

I don’t know how much more Good News I can proclaim today so I will tell you a story.  This comes from Melvin Newland.  A Bible school teacher was telling the story of the crucifixion of Jesus.  To illustrate, she took two pieces of wood and put them together in the form of a cross.  Then she explained with emotion in her voice that Jesus was nailed to a cross, that His hands were nailed to the cross piece and His feet were nailed to the upright piece.  And He hung on that cross and died.

One little boy said, “That’s terrible!”  Then the teacher continued.  “But that’s not the end of the story.  They buried Him in a tomb and on the third day He arose from the dead.  Jesus is alive and alive forevermore!”

The little boy’s eyes got as big as saucers and he said, “Totally awesome!”  Totally awesome, people, that is what Jesus is.  In the past 18+ years, Jesus is everything that I have said He is and much, much more.  And I have only scratched the surface.  Jesus calls you in your Gospel.  He comforts you; He guides you.  But the best thing that He can do for you is to just love you.  Jesus is the best part of living.  He is the best part of life.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.