2nd Timothy 2:1-13

Well this morning we're going to take a look at the second chapter of 2 Timothy. And this is probably one of the reasons that the second verse of this in particular is one of the reasons why I really was looking forward to teaching the pastoral epistles. So let's go ahead and read this. We're just going to start with 1 through 7 and then we'll do the second block. a little bit later, but let's read this.

He says, 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 the prize, and I've got their note that that's the same word for crown, 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, starting off, he says, You, therefore, my son. What's the therefore, therefore? That's one of those things that would drive me nuts when teachers would ask it, but as I was preparing for this lesson, I thought it was actually a relevant question. So I'm going to compromise my own general tendency to avoid saying what's the therefore, therefore.

What is Paul building on from the first chapter that he's now bringing to this transition to talk with, or in his letter to Timothy. Why should Timothy be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus? Stan? Well, we were talking about all the things that he was supposed to do and how he was supposed to act. And the things that he was supposed to do, like Paul. And if he does those things, there's going to be struggles. There's going to be suffering. things that require internal strength and external strength. Now, so the environment that Timothy was in and the calling that he was given and the life that he was going to have to live as an ambassador of Paul the Apostle was going to be difficult. Fortunately, we know that Paul was only talking about trials and suffering for him, right?

There's never any need for any believers in the modern times to worry about that, right? Everything just stays easy. Once you become a believer, everything gets wonderful. It becomes like a TV show. If there's a problem, it's resolved in 30 minutes or less, right? So Paul writes this, but the context for the therefore is that, hey, Timothy, I'm writing these things to you. Stay faithful. Keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. And he says, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

One thing I think is interesting is that here at Holly Hills, we've talked about grace, we did a class on grace. How many people that are in this room were in the grace class, or listened to it online, or on tape, or CD, or 8-track? A couple hands, okay.

The thing about grace, growing up for me, coming from a lack of full understanding of grace, grace was always something that was there only when you screwed up. That was the way I had perceived grace. And so when I read this as a younger believer, I didn't really understand what Paul was talking about. But I would just keep reading so it didn't really matter, right? Oh, I don't understand this. Just keep going. Just plow through. But Paul says to be strong in the grace. If grace is only for sin, then you can't be strong in grace. So what is grace? How do we define grace?

How is it that Timothy could be strong in it, and it's not just for when you sin? The difficulty that Timothy and Paul were jointly encountering was not because of their sinning, but it was a set of circumstances, and difficult people even. that would bring about their difficulties. And so the grace that they needed, the strength of them, was not because of their sin. Perhaps you could lay it to other people's sins, but not theirs.

Yeah. If grace, our working definition has been from Chafer, and it's that grace is the unlimited, unmerited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross, If you are resting in the sufficiency of Christ's work, then as you encounter various trials, do you have a way to cope with them in the context of God's work in your life? You can say yes.

Timothy, I'm sure heard Paul speak what was the equivalent of Romans 8.28, where he says, all things work for the good for those who love the Lord. That word, all, kills me every time. I'm like, oh man, I can think of things that I... how could this possibly be used? Except for God's not limited by my imagination.

So as he is strong in grace and grows, whatever trials he encounters, they need to be in that context. But it is in Christ Jesus, so that's an important element. The question I have on here is what is the opposite of being strong in grace? Is it weak grace or legalism or both? What's not strong in grace?

How do we describe what that doesn't look like? And really this is kind of an open-ended question, but it's more to kind of think about. It's not walking in Christ and walking in the life that we have in Him. In looking at this, if you think about weak grace, there really isn't weak grace. Weak grace isn't. It's not grace. Grace is a full concept, but it's not walking in it.

We're about the ones that are abiding in grace. That's right. And that's what it is. It's about our abiding and walking in fellowship. Alright, any other thoughts on that before we dive in on the next verse, which I'll try not to spend too long on because I really love it. Right in parallel with that, Paul also writes about being strengthened by grace. Strengthened by grace.

Alright, so the second verse he says, "...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." And that right there, really honestly, is one of the most important parts of church history. And it's one of the more important parts of why we gather together and have fellowship with one another in the body.

How many of you in your lives have had bad teaching and had applied that bad teaching and found it also led to some really awkward results or bad results? For me, if I could extend it like some of those awkward Photoshop pictures where my arm would be much longer, I would do it. Because I remember hearing all kinds of weird teaching, not having discernment to know that it was bad teaching. and then tried to apply it. And of course the results of that garbage in as you get garbage out.

But Paul, first he says, the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses. Is Paul concerned about the veracity of what he taught? As long as I say it's in front of a lot of people, Timothy will go, oh, it must be true. Why do you think he mentions the presence of many people or witnesses? I'm not sure that that's what he's referring to there, although that may technically be accurate. I'm not sure. Stan? It almost sounds like in the beginning of Hebrews chapter 11, I'm under the cloud of witnesses. Okay.

You know, we're saying this and a lot of people are aware of what we're saying. The consistency, if a lot of people have heard Paul, there's going to be consistency within the churches, hopefully, with what they've heard and talked. But the idea is that Paul is saying, hey, you've heard me say these things a bunch of times. Now you need to go make sure you're saying those same things. But is he just saying them to everybody? Where's Paul concerned that these nuggets of truth, and I hate to say that, it almost sounds cheap, while these valuable, precious doctrines of truth.

Where are they supposed to land? To faithful men. And that right there is probably one of the most difficult parts of this passage. Who is a faithful man? Let's say if we take this in the context of Titus chapter 2 where older women are to teach younger women. Who is a faithful young woman? Who is that? How do you know? My dad and I have talked about this a lot, so I'm sure he's holding back. Only God knows for sure. Okay, only God knows for sure.

But the concept of a faithful man, would you say that Paul has written, when we studied the first letter to Timothy, that he's written some things that might give us some clues? What are the qualities of of an elder. We're just trying to dig for context for faithfulness. Any thoughts? What are qualities of a faithful believer? upon my character. So an elder is not a new believer and has character.

So that would be an important obvious place for Timothy to start and for us to start looking, okay, these are the people that we're supposed to be entrusted with truth. The characters of people who are supposed to be entrusted with truth. And then, what are they supposed to do with it? They're witnesses? Okay. They can depend on it being faithful. They know that this has been heard across and that there's veracity to it. But what are these men supposed to do with the truth once it's been entrusted to them? To teach it. And that right there is one of the most important parts of looking at the process of sanctification in the life of the believer.

If you get the truth of God's Word handed to you and you've studied it and the Holy Spirit makes it part of your life and it dies with you and you never got a chance to tell anybody else about it, that's going to be unfortunate. There's context to which that can happen. I don't want to make any kind of rules or legalism about if you don't teach then this is wrong with you or something. That's not the point. But Paul is concerned that the truth of God's Word be passed down.

Before I was 20, my dad was discipled by a guy in Reno, and he would come home from discipleship time, and he was just very excited about what he'd learned in studying God's Word. And it was really cool. Here was this young guy, and I'd lived in a Christian home. I'd lived in what I thought was, well, I still think, a pretty awesome household. But then my dad came home more excited about God's Word and his relationship with Christ than he had for the roughly 20 years before that, or 18, 19 years before that. And it was really amazing. But what was happening was that someone was really investing time teaching doctrine and principles that were part of spiritual growth and the life of the believer, and my dad was taking it and he was being entrusted with these things.

And then he said, Hey Randy, I really want to go over this material with you. And how could I say no to someone who was excited and was obviously being filled with the life of Christ? who says, hey, I want to spend time with you so that you can be excited about these things, too. He was sharing those things with us at dinners and stuff like that. It wasn't like he was hiding it except for this secret special time. But he wanted to have that one-on-one time to really make sure I understood those things.

And then I moved to Texas, which is a private trail other than to say that in Texas I began to share the things that I had learned from my dad, the principles that were there. And it was really cool to see that other people were really excited because suddenly they were getting doctrinal truth. They'd had legalism and it really wasn't working out for them. And so grace was coming. So the principle of passing it on was important. Yeah, Pat.

I think that his presence and many witnesses also being part of a support group, like attempting to get other people that had heard what he heard, that he could talk with them, I hadn't considered that. I'm not sure. I think really more what Paul would be concerned with is that, hey Timothy, you've heard me repeat these things over and over. There's some doctrines that I've said over and over wherever we go. And make sure that those are things that are getting passed. I think that's part of the element that's there.

The truth of the matter is that there's probably a bunch of different applications that come from the principle of Paul talking about the witnesses. But there's a core principle that, hey, I've been teaching these things faithfully for how long? How many decades had he been teaching? I don't know the answer to that, but I mean, it's been a while.

Timothy was traveling with him for a while. There was not an ambiguity to the doctrine that Paul was teaching. Timothy would be familiar with it. Stan? Real quick. Sure. You said the teaching Paul said several times, I believe, imitate us. So he's not only teaching by word, but he's also teaching by example. And sometimes I think the second is probably more effective than maybe the first. And I think when Paul's talking to Timothy, basically it's a summation of his life, of what he's lived.

The important thing is that what you see lived out is really important for being discipled or being raised up within the body. If you've heard somebody speak the truth over and over again, but it doesn't actually ever come out in their actions, that's usually a trigger for a red flag. Something's wrong here. Oh no, there's inconsistency.

How many times do you think Timothy got to send emails to these guys he was teaching? Or just letters? How often do you think they actually really just sat with Timothy and he went over the truth and the doctrines that Paul was teaching? Probably often through the Old Testament texts as well.

Here's the foundations for the gospel and here's what God was setting up. Here's how this all laid out. Timothy was spending time with them. Recently I had a friend who sent me a link to this software he was working on, where one of the examples of this software was so that you would use it in your church to help communicate important things in your church, and you'd use the software to do it, and you'd be able to send these videos or instructional teaching tapes.

And I thought about that, and I thought, that really lacks the personal interaction and depth that that really allows the teacher to know that the student has learned, and it allows the student to ask a lot of interactive questions. I mean, last night I was making sure that I had my doctrine lined up for the last part of this lesson.

I had my dad call. I said, Dad, if you're still awake, give me a call because I want to make sure I got this. I want to teach good teaching tomorrow. Go to your elder, right? That's what I'm supposed to do here as the junior teacher. And he called and he went over things and we discussed it and I knew that I had the right doctrine but I had some things clarified more clearly. And it was awesome. But it would have been way less valuable had he just sent me a video to some site. And he did send me a handout with some good information. In fact, I'm going to use some of that when we get there.

But the conversation element of it, the relationship element of it, makes it much more certain that I understand the doctrine. And hopefully, as we're in this classroom setting, if I say something unclear, you can raise your hand. We can interact. And then you can know that you understood what I was trying to say. Which is hopefully what Paul was trying to say.

So, yeah. One other thing I'll say is that this stands in sharp contrast to the mystery religion. That's true. At the time it was like, you know, okay, you pay your money and then you get into the special thing where you get the secret knowledge. Yeah. This is just outright, you know, contrary to that. Yeah.

No secrets here. in front of many witnesses, this was presented. The cults and the mystery religions that were common in the time actually I think were one of the most important parts of the secular culture for spreading the gospel. People had lived where everything was a secret and if you wanted spiritual truth you had to pay your dues and you had to get into the right group and do the right thing. And Paul shows up as well as the rest of the apostles, the Lord sends them out And all these people are shocked that they can get this truth openly and freely available, and there's no hoops to jump through. So yeah, in front of many witnesses, that's an important connection. Any other questions on this? Fundamentally, the idea is that whatever is true that Paul is teaching to Timothy, he doesn't want it to end with Paul, he doesn't want it to end with Timothy, and he doesn't want it to end with these men.

Where's the church in Ephesus now? It's unfortunately a shell. There are still buildings there and there are people who go to religious services there, but the vibrant life of the church is certainly not, at least as we understand it, is not there. Now I want to be careful because I have not been there and I don't know. The Lord has probably got people there that are doing amazing things, that he's doing amazing things through. But the vibrancy of the church is weakened.

What about the church in the United States? I'm not saying this to be critical, but in the United States, do we have godly men teaching the truth that Paul taught and passing it down consistently? Can you go to any church without discrimination because you know they're going to teach the Word of God clearly and carefully?

And I say that very carefully because I have left many churches and I've visited many more churches trying to find the right church. I moved from Dallas to Denver so I could go to this church because I got tired of looking in Dallas. But the truth of the matter is that it is really, really important that as believers, no matter where the Lord has us, if you're young, if you're in between, or you're old, it does not matter. Make sure that you are either on the receiving end of good teaching, and if you are, if you have confidence in those things, that you're also on the sharing or giving side of that. Don't let it stop with you.

Do you have children? Do you have grandchildren? Do you have friends? Do you have neighbors? Aunts? Uncles? I don't care. Make sure it doesn't stop with you. It's really important. Because in 200 years, it's still going to be really important, unless the Lord has returned. In which case it'll still be important because they'll be reigning with us, but that's for the later part of the lesson. Alright, so passing it on down is an important element, and it's the truth, and it's been passed on down.

Then Paul continues on, he says, "...suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." Paul has already mentioned suffering earlier in chapter 1. It seems to be an important theme in this book, that he's going to say, We're working really hard.

Paul writes to Timothy twice, and we only have one letter to Titus. Maybe Paul wrote to Timothy more than twice, but we have two letters. Paul seems to really need to encourage Timothy, in contrast to Titus, at least as far as our written records indicate. But Timothy is here, and Paul says, hey, endure the suffering. Endure it with me. It's important. And then he says why.

He has three allegories, or not allegories, but three illustrations. He says, 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. The next illustration is also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize or crown unless he competes according to the rules. And the third illustration is the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. And he says to consider what he says for the Lord will give him understanding in everything.

So what's the illustration of the soldier? What does this illustration mean? was the application for Timothy. Can anybody think of a biblical story where a soldier didn't participate in the daily affairs of life because he was enlisted and he was supposed to be doing soldierly things?

If you've got your Bibles, turn with me to 2 Samuel 11. We're going to read about David and Bathsheba's affair. because I think that's an important illustration of someone applying this and it kind of came back to bite David. It's because he already crossed the line. So 2 Samuel 11 verses 6 through 13. Well, actually I'll start at 5.

Bathsheba the woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, I am pregnant. Then David sent to Joab saying send me Uriah the Hittite. So Joab sent Uriah to David. Now Uriah is Bathsheba's husband. When Uriah came to him, David asked concerning the welfare of Joab and the people in the state of the war. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet.

And Uriah went out of the king's house, and a present from the king was sent out after him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. Now when they told David, saying, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey?

Why did you not go down to your house? Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life and the life of your soul I will not do this thing.

We have to keep going but that must have been really rough on David. Then David said to Uriah, Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you go. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now David called him, and he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie in his bed with his Lord's servants, but he did not go down to his house."

So what's the soldier doing? He's doing the proper thing, which is to not be distracted by his home life during his soldierly duties. Paul is writing to Timothy, we're soldiering along for the gospel here, don't be distracted by all the frills that are going to be coming.

If you're Timothy, and you're in Ephesus, Ephesus is a pretty major town. Okay, let's pretend it's like L.A. for no apparent reason. But we're going to pretend that Ephesus is the L.A. of the area in the Mediterranean. Because Rome would have to be New York. I think that's really how we have to play that out. But Ephesus is like L.A. If you go to L.A., it would be really easy to be entertained, wouldn't it?

There's things that are about entertainment all the time. It's the entertainment capital of the world, right? Or as they try to say they are. They want you to be distracted. Be amused. Have you ever been bored before? I think boredom is one of the most important parts of the American life because it's something that we hate so much even though boredom is really self-inflicted. You know, you can think, you can study God's Word, you can meditate on the things that you've already studied in God's Word. Boredom is really self-inflicted, but we've got to be amused. We've got our smartphones, we've got our tablets, or our laptops, or our computers, or our TVs, or our radios. There's always something.

You don't have to think. Don't think right now. But Paul's writing to Timothy here, and I'm sorry, I totally rabbit-trailed on that. But Paul's writing to Timothy, and he's saying, hey, the soldier is not distracted from his work. We need to not be distracted from our work. Suffer with me. It's tough. I know it's tough. But hang in there.

We've got to teach God's Word, and we've got to make sure this lasts. Now the good thing is that it wasn't reliant just on Paul and just on Timothy. The Holy Spirit was involved, right? So we don't have to panic and go, Oh no! What if it stops with me? The Holy Spirit's involved. So the soldier is there. The soldier is not to entangle himself in the affairs of everyday life. Uriah did that. David was a little miffed. He took care of that problem by murdering him. Also not a great strategy.

Paul keeps teaching here as he's writing to Timothy, and he says, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize or the crown unless he competes according to the rules. Now, this is a good opportunity for us to employ legalism, right? That's what the rules are referring to? Is that what Paul's talking about?

Maybe we should go to another passage and make sure we have clarification. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 9, 24-27. Boy, I'm just taking my time. I've got to hurry up or we're never going to make it through all this. We're going to miss the part about losing our salvation. So, 1 Corinthians 9, 24-27. Let's turn there. 1 Corinthians 9, 24-27.

He says, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath. but we an imperishable." Okay, the wreath is the crown, an imperishable crown. Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air.

But I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. Now, Paul has already told Timothy, make sure you teach the things that I've said in front of lots of witnesses. I'm gonna imagine that with the popularity of sports within world history, that Paul had probably used this illustration not just to the Corinthians. I'm going to go out on a limb. That's not inspired by the Holy Spirit, but I think it seems like a reasonable assumption that Paul had used that before. And so when he's writing to Timothy, hey, teach these things that I've spoken in front of many witnesses, this is probably, when he makes that reference to running according to the rules, There were processes that you had to go through.

One of the rules of competing in the Olympics at that time was that you had to train for 10 months before the Olympics. If you didn't train for the 10 months leading up to the Olympics, you couldn't compete. But you needed a judge who was judging and making sure you qualified. Who's our judge?

Who qualifies us? The Lord. He pre-qualified us, fortunately. He killed the part of us that couldn't qualify and identified us with him. But Paul is referring to this principle of the prize. And he talks about the prize here so that we can understand the eternal rewards principle.

What happens when we are judged for rewards? What do we get? What does the Bible describe that we get? The crowns. He's using the same illustration here. And what are we going to do with those crowns? We're going to worship Him with the rewards that we get for Him living through us. That's pretty cool. That gets me excited. How cool is that? You get something for something I did through you, and then you're going to worship me back with those things. That just makes me excited. I think that's pretty neat.

Alright, so we'll keep going because we're running out of time here. What does the analogy of the farmer mean for Timothy? Basically, he's talking about making sure he has his needs met by the body there. We're going to keep moving along so we can get to the part about losing our salvation because that's doctrinally a really important element of this passage. not be doing justice to it if I didn't at least take a moment to dig into it with you.

Paul is continuing on with these doctrines that he's spoken in front of many witnesses in verse 8. He says, Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to imprisonment as a criminal. But the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement. For if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. And if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So Paul continues talking about the gospel in verse 8, and hopefully you have a general understanding of the gospel so we can keep moving here, but it's important that Paul says, Timothy, they need to know the gospel.

It wasn't until I went to seminary where I really firmly could restate the gospel the same way every time and talk about things. Because I had grown up in a Christian household, but I really had not gone over the gospel since I was a little kid and believed. It was not a regular part of Sunday school lessons. Daniel in the Lion's Den was. Timothy is saying, hey, make sure they can present the gospel. Make sure they know the gospel. Make sure they know where it comes from in God's plan. These men need to be able to reproduce this in their conversations with other men.

And then Paul talks about suffering for the gospel. He says, I'm even considered a criminal and I'm in prison for it, but that's okay because the gospel is not imprisoned. This is also another cool doctrine. We talked about it a little bit in the last couple weeks.

But the gospel was shared and Paul had opportunities. Every guard he was chained to got to hear the gospel. The guard's doing his job. Paul's doing his. Here's the gospel. Here's the gospel. Oh, you're chained to me? Sweet! I don't know you. I'm Paul. Let me tell you about Jesus. Over and over. Paul's in prison, but the gospel is not.

For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen." It doesn't matter that he's in prison. It doesn't matter that he's suffering because he's sharing the gospel and God has chosen people and they need to hear the gospel. He wants to be the agent of that. I want to be the agent of the gospel. I can't wait. It doesn't matter what I'm suffering.

That's really an important concept and one that I've been reflecting on this week, thinking, Lord, let me have that attitude that I'm always looking at opportunities in life as gospel-sharing opportunities, not new business contact opportunities, not new, you know, oh, this person, I can network with them for this technological thing. What's the Lord doing with the gospel? So, an important concept. Now let's get into this quatrain or these four verses that Paul quotes that is a trustworthy statement. He says, For if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Now, the first thing to recognize in this is that there's something going on in the Greek language here with the if. It's a first class. Is it first class conditional? That's the proper term to describe that. And it's an if that assumes that it is true for the sake of argument. OK, so if, but it's not if as though it's majorly in question, but if for the sake of argument.

So, for if we died with him, did we die with him? Has Paul been unclear on that in other epistles? We did. So we don't have to worry about that one, do we? If we died with him, we will also live with him. Well, guess what? We did die with him. So we will also live with him.

So we're in good shape. Then he says, if we endure. Now, again, is this something that we should be worried about, or is this true? It's the if for the sake of presenting truth. Alright, if we endure, we will also reign with Him. Now, if you have lots of time, and you should make it, and I should make it more as well, listen to the Revelation series, because the Lord revealed to John that we will reign with Him. And John speaks of it very confidently, and there's no exceptions for believers. And then he says something here that's important. He says, if we deny Him, and again it's that first class conditional, if we deny Him, He will also deny us.

Now here's the question. Is this about salvation? Is the denying about salvation? No, it's not. And that's really, really important. My brother and I went to a church in Phoenix, where I heard the pastor teaching on this, and he basically said, I cannot interpret this any other way than loss of salvation, which really bummed me out. I said, oh no, because first of all, there's other opportunities to interpret this in light of the greater context of the passage and Paul's writing in the New Testament, but additionally, that's a real problem theologically, because we just talked about being identified with Christ. What is the identification truth in reverse? Because loss of salvation means the identification trees need to be reversed. We need a reversal process, where we're unseated with Him in the heavenlies, and unascended with Him, and unresurrected with Him, unburied with Him, uncrucified with Him.

Paul doesn't write about that. He seems to be rather silent on the reverse identification process. It's not there. So what we have to do is we have to look at the denying as our walking in the flesh or being carnal at some point in time. Okay? We're denying Him. We're not walking in fellowship.

But we have the relationship. The relationship is already established. The first stanza, or the first line, I'm sorry, of this quatrain. We've died with Him already. There are many times when we walk in the flesh. When that happens, Our fellowship is temporarily broken, but our relationship is secure. And why do we know that?

The next line. The next line. If we are faithless, if we walk in the flesh, if we blow it, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny us. Who can He not deny? Himself. And that's huge. So this denying of the third line is not a loss of salvation. That's really, really important.

If you walk away from this class having learned anything, make sure that you have security of salvation if you need that reminder. God is faithful and will take care of Himself in this context, and that is tremendous. Now, I want to read for you, it's not in the handout, but if you listen to the question and answer series, or if you were in the class, they went over loss of salvation. And this is the expanded and explained of this Second Timothy to 11 through 13 from that class.

It's on the handout on the website. It's not in your handout, I apologize. After I printed it out, I was leaving the house thinking, I should have put it on the handout, but it was too late because I don't have a portable printer. So you'll have to just listen to it. So listen carefully, all right?

It is a trustworthy statement which Paul wrote repeatedly to both Timothy and Titus as absolutely true and exceedingly valuable in ministry. For if we, having been identified with him, died with him, which is most certainly true, we will also live with him, having been identified with him in his resurrection, ascension, and seating, which is also most certainly true.

And if we endure, as is also certainly the case, we will also reign with Him, having been seated with Him in the heavenlies already. If we deny Him, as we will do at times, even though we have an eternal relationship with Him, He also will deny us fellowship at those moments that we deny Him. Not that this is His desire. If we are faithless, and we will indeed be faithless at times, not walking by faith in God for a moment of time, he still remains faithful always and forever, even during those times when we don't walk by faith. For he cannot deny himself, since he is eternally of the same character and true to his promises as the promise keeper. That was way more direct and succinct than I could think to teach it. So hopefully that's useful.

I'll make sure that if you don't know where the link for this is or if you want a copy of it, just let me know and I'll make sure I get everybody the link to it. It's up on the Holly Hills website. It's like lesson 21 if you were to go onto the website. I meant to write it down, but I failed to do so. Any other thoughts, questions, disagreements? Things you wish older men had taught me, so that as a teacher now, I could have said it.

Alright, well nobody's throwing stones or tomatoes, so that's good. Let's go before the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you that we are gathered here and able to discuss the truths that are here. Thank you for the confidence that your word can instill in us that we know that you have a faithfulness and a plan for us through identification that is just unbelievable and infinitely amazing. We pray that the truth of your word would permeate our lives and that we would look for opportunities to be sharing the gospel with those around us and loving one another and sharing and passing on the truths that you've given us. In Jesus name, Amen.