Power, Love & Discipline

Okay, thank you. So, we're in the book of 2 Timothy. And you have to get your mind around what's going on here. Paul is writing from prison in Rome, and we'll talk a little bit more about those conditions as we go through the class today. But he's writing to his son in the faith, his younger son in the faith. And he's nearing a time where he's facing death. And so he's in prison in Rome, and he's inquiring to Timothy about visiting him, coming to see him. And he has an urgency in his heart about it. But in his urgency, he's also sharing with Timothy the type of attitude that a young pastor might have or should have in regards to the persecution and the challenges that they were facing.

So when you get your questions, you'll see that we've answered questions one through four. We're going to pick up with question five today. But just to review real quick, and you can kind of follow along in the verse seven, we'll be in verse seven and maybe eight today, definitely seven and eight. But the first question, we picked out the questions one and two, we picked out the words spirit plus timidity. And we said that, and this is review, we said that the word spirit here means a disposition of mind.

And so this is not the Holy Spirit. This is the disposition that God did not give, cowardice, right? The kind of fear that shrinks from duty when it gets costly. And this is Timothy's natural wiring, and Paul knows it, that He's gotta be encouraged here, that things are getting challenging for believers at this time, and especially for Paul. So we looked at the word spirit and timidity, and I bring that up because we also looked at question three, which covered the term power. So we define what is that power?

And we said that that was the first gift God did give. It was already given to Timothy. It was a done deal. He wasn't waiting on it, he was standing in it, right? And then the second one, or the third one you'll see there, second rather, love was the second gift. And we said, not just an affection or a goodwill, and we could say that it was a divine and self-sacrificial type of love. So where we've come so far in these verses is that power is equipped and love aims it. So power equipped Timothy and love aimed it in the direction that Paul had intentions for him to follow. So two of these three gifts are on the table for us, that being power and love.

Now Paul names a third, and that's where we pick up today in question number five. So can someone read question number five that has the sheet? Just wanna see how many people actually have sheets. That's okay. So looking at verse seven, we see at the very end, what's that final gift do you think that Paul is talking about?

Discipline. So the question for number five is what role does discipline play here for Timothy? And it turns out, we'll ask the question, what role does discipline play for you too? So that's the question, what role does discipline play here for Timothy? And remember, you've got power and love preceding it.

What do you think? Well, I'll give you some hints. So in the New American Standard, the word is used discipline. In the New King James Version, it's used as sound mind. So you've got power and love, and then you've got sound mind. And both are translating the same Greek word. Sophronismos, meaning self-control, sound-mindedness, prudent direction. And I like this statement, pay attention to this. It's the disposition that keeps power and love operating in their right channels. So you could have power and love without discipline.

What might that look like? That's what we're going to kind of work through today. Right. Yeah. Well, this is a guardrail. Let's talk about it. So, some of the notes that I got from Mike, I'll refer to them as the expositor notes here. Discipline refers to that which gives a gift sane direction. The opposite being insane. So, sane direction. Can you be insanely powerful or sanely powerful in this moment? Can you be insanely loving?

Well, that's what this word discipline does. It has a check on the remaining, on the preceding two gifts. And so he says that discipline refers to that which gives a gift sane direction and is a word meaning self-control. Gifts are always to be under control. Think about that. Have you ever thought about a gift? that the Lord has given you as being under control. And he's referring both individually here with Timothy and corporately within the church, because we see that in 1 Corinthians 14.

So Wiest, who is one of the Greek scholars that we often refer to, he translates this word discipline as sound mind. And again, neither are right or wrong. They both combine to really give you the full picture. But in this case, Kenneth Weist sides with the New King James reading, and he chooses sound mind. Both carry the same concept there, a settled, a sober frame of mind.

How can you be loving and powerful with a settled, sober frame of mind? and the self-control that flows out of that. So here's what I want you to pick up right now. Discipline is how a sound mind acts when pressure shows up. What do you think I mean by that? Discipline is how a sound mind acts when pressure shows up. You don't lose it when the pressure shows up.

Everybody agree with that? Yeah? So power tells Timothy he can. He can do what Paul is asking him to do. Love tells him why he does it. And discipline tells him how to keep doing it without running off the rails. You see the connection there? So you've got, you can, and this is why, And this is how you keep doing it without falling off the rails.

So I often use for my analogy of, or my term for the sin nature is the me monster. Right? The me monster, the sin nature always wants what? Me. Always wants me. So you take the me-monster when we all have this in nature, right? So the me-monster wants spiritual gifts to draw attention to who? Me. The spirit gave you discipline to keep that me-monster in the cage.

And there's mechanisms that the Lord has given Timothy and we'll see in other studies of how that mechanism of keeping the mean monster in the cage works. But this is really the crescendo of verse seven is discipline tells Timothy how to keep doing what he's doing in love and in the power of the spirit without running off the rails. And so that closes out verse seven, and these are three gifts that we already have, power, love, and discipline, not earned, already given. Paul's not asking Timothy to manufacture any of it.

He's saying, reckon on it. Reckon on what you have. That word reckoning means to consider it so. God says, this is what you have, Paul. Paul says, Timothy, you have the same. And it's not that you've earned it, you didn't do anything for it. You've been given the power and the love and the discipline to carry out the things that I'm asking you to do. Do you believe me? He's not asking him to muster up love. Go get you some love, put on your boots and get out there and go. He's not asking him to be powerful in his own might. He's saying, I want you to reckon on what you already have. Okay, does that make sense? Okay, so we're gonna build on that in verse eight. So somebody look at 2 Timothy 1, verse eight, and read that one out for us.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the possible according to the power of God So question six, was Timothy ashamed of Paul's testimony and Paul himself? Because he says, therefore don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. So is Paul telling Timothy not to be ashamed of himself or of Paul himself?

What's he telling him? Has anyone ever been in a moment where it felt costly to say out loud that you're a believer? It's a follow-up question for you. You ever been in that situation where you're like, oh, I know I want to say something. And you're wrestling with the Lord about, is this the right time?

And then you start getting into the me monster concept. What will they think of me? Me, me, me, me, me. How will I come across? How will this carry out with my friendship with them? Anybody ever been in those situations? Just a head nod? A bob-a-head? Okay. So, therefore do not be ashamed.

We need to get that settled in our mind. And this is one of those places where I think the Greek tense of the word ashamed really helps us. So in English we have the translation, in most of your translations you have, do not be ashamed. And if you read that just in simple passing, it reads like Paul is calling Timothy out for already being ashamed. Don't be ashamed. Don't be that, as if he had already been ashamed at some point in time. But the Greek tells us a different story there. So let's jump into some of the notes and I'll read this to you. So the exhortation, be not ashamed, does not mean that Timothy was ashamed.

Had that been the case, Paul would have used the present imperative. which with the negative forbids the continuance of an action already going on. Here, in this case, Paul uses, he uses the aorist subjunctive with the negative. Why does that matter? Why do all those Greek things matter? Because in this case, that's what forbids the doing of an act not yet begun, right?

So furthermore, Timothy should not be ashamed of a testimony for the Lord or of anyone else who suffers for that testimony. Don't be ashamed for me suffering for the testimony or anyone else that's suffering for the testimony, such as Paul himself. Now remember, Paul was in prison under Nero and he was facing almost certain death. Timothy is not to be fearful and thus be ashamed to visit Paul in prison.

And Wiest has a way of saying this in this translation of this verse. He says, therefore do not begin. And that word begin is the key there. Therefore do not begin to be ashamed of the testimony born of our God, of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. So let's put this together. Do not begin to be ashamed. That's that word that when I mentioned all those Greek grammar concepts, that's where we get the fact that Paul is forbidding the start of any action that hasn't started yet.

He's not asking Timothy to stop something he's already doing. He's saying, essentially, don't even go there. That's how we might say it. Just don't go there, Timothy. This is about the testimony of our Lord. Don't be ashamed. Don't even allow your mind to go there.

So, does that make sense? Well, and I think the world, that's exactly what the world's going to, anybody coming at him is going to come at him to make him ashamed. Yeah. How might they do that to you? How might the world tempt you to be ashamed of the testimony of God? And believers can do it to believers as well.

Unfortunately. I think one of the tools That opposing part is used against each other to shame one another. It's a purposeful tool. I'm going to shame you before you get the chance to shame me. Does that resonate? The shame game? So Paul is bracing Timothy for what hasn't even happened yet. He's preparing him.

Now remember, Nero is on the throne, and this is the kind of narcissist who treats any allegiance other than emperor worship as treason. I don't know if you guys know how bad this man was. I'll read you a non-biblical scholar from the day, Tacitus, from 116 AD. This is what he said about Nero.

He said he observed mockery of every sort, and it was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished. These are Christians. Or they were nailed to crosses or were doomed to the flames and burnt to serve as nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle. So as night came, he gathered up Christians and burned them and used them for light in his garden, for his own light. and shenanigans of whatever he had going on.

Yeah. It seems to me that there's the temptation to be ashamed. And Paul is saying to him, don't let that happen. But what about Nero? If he goes to visit Paul, he's marking himself. And this isn't a Christian legend. This is, it's a pagan Roman Senator Tacitus documenting what his own emperor was doing to Christians. So this was in the back of Paul's mind, as well as Timothy's and every other believer. You know, we think about the oppressive situations that we live in, but this was far worse.

This is the empire that Paul was, was imprisoned and writing from. I was trying to imagine Paul in prison, chained, with his little bowl of ink and his quill and his parchment, which was very important to him, right? It would be, because otherwise these letters would not have been written.

So he had to rely on others to bring him these, and he needed a light, ink, a quill, and parchment, and food, and water. That's what he had. and he was imprisoned. And above him, Christians were being burned and hung and fed to dogs and covered in the skins of beasts. That's what was happening outside of his cell.

And that was what was happening, you know, a hundred some odd miles away where Timothy was being written to. So for Paul, to visit Paul, Timothy must have had a lot of potentially fear, right? Fear of being marked. If I go visit him, and I look through his cell, and I give him the parchment, or whatever it is, and I hug him, and we rejoice, and we spend time together, and we fellowship, I'm a marked man under Nero.

So to name Paul as your father in the faith is to put your own neck on the same chopping block. Now, when you think about this verse, that changes the concept a little bit. Paul says, Timothy, when a cost gets real, don't shrink from me. Don't shrink from the testimony, don't flinch. Can we do that in our own power? No, I don't think we could. I often think, we feel like, well, I would face torture for Christ's sake. But we weren't going to tell our acquaintances about Christ because they might smell us. Or shame us.

Jim, the thing that comes to my mind is kind of an underlying thought. in this verse is that all it's saying, you can use any word of shame, don't get afraid. But really, too, is to say, stand bold for the purpose for which you've been called. Because fear is gonna be there, and uncertainty's gonna be there. So boldness, based on who you were called by and what you were called to do, should be at the forefront of your life. I think you're right. Don't shrink from the testimony, and that's where we're gonna get to in the next portion of this, is that the boldness was tied to the testimony. He says, don't flinch, Timothy. Don't shrink. Okay, question seven.

How should we view the statement, testimony of the Lord? What does the testimony of the Lord refer to here? The notes that Mike put together, the testimony of the Lord here refers to the testimony born, B-O-R-N-E, born, born of our Lord, his ethical and spiritual teachings by which Christianity has influenced the ideals and practice of society.

And the Greek helps us understand this a little bit better. The term testimony, this is Macaulay, another, pastor, teacher, the term testimony of our Lord should be taken to mean testimony for our Lord, not testimony from the Lord. The context shows the issue is not the testimony that the Lord made, but rather our testimony for Him.

What I found is that in some of the commentaries And then in Weist, and then in Macaulay, there's a difference with how this particular term comes together in the Greek. The expositors in Weist land on a subjective genitive, which means the testimony belongs to the Lord, the witness he bore. But Macaulay argues the objective genitive, which is the testimony belongs to us, the witness we bear for him. And so it's okay that that's ambiguous because both are true in the sense of the outcome of it.

And it's not to say that it's misleading, it just means where does the testimony come from? Are we bearing the witness he bore for him or are we bearing his witness? And in practice, both readings land in the same place. If it's the testimony that Christ bore, what's the result? Timothy shouldn't shrink from the gospel itself. If it's the testimony we bear for him, Timothy shouldn't shrink from his own witness. So whether it's his witness for the Lord or the Lord's witness, he doesn't shrink from it.

So either way, the prohibition stands for what he's saying. Don't be quiet for the testimony of our Lord. When the world makes it costly to name Christ, the temptation isn't to disbelieve, it's to fall silent. Paul says, don't do that. Don't fall silent. Even when it's costly to claim the testimony of our Lord. What do you guys think about that? How easy is it to fall silent? It's not to say, okay, I'm under pressure. I know it's costly. It could cost me my job. It could cost my friendships. It could cost me issues with relationships, marriage, whatever. It could be very costly. And it's not that you all of a sudden stop believing in that testimony, but you become quiet about it.

Paul says this is a suggestion or a command? This is a command. Yeah. I think one of the problems you have here is the fact that at the point in which the Lord comes to the planet, Paul hasn't come on the scene yet. And there's a testimony about Christ and who He is and what He did up to that point, but then Paul shows up. The Lord puts them in the desert for five years and teaches them church truths and identification, things that he writes about that are not different, but their doctrine has to do with what a person who's resurrected in Christ would understand from a grace standpoint, that a person who just That's right Yeah, the commands here, could not be fulfilled without the resurrection life. So to ask Mark or Luke to have this same attitude, well, Peter, what did he do? Was he ashamed? Yeah. See, John didn't have that same attitude because he wrote 35 years later. Yep. But here, you're writing after the resurrection. We're getting written to after the Holy Spirit has been given to a believer.

And so the life is different from the epistles and those that were being written to in the gospel messages. So what we're picking out here is that there is a tremendous amount of suffering that you're going to have to face, Timothy. And it's not going to be about your self-effort that's going to get you through it. It's going to be about the life of Christ.

And Paul's job is to tell you about that. It was his job to tell Timothy about that, and it was Paul's job to tell you about that too, because you have the same life that Timothy has, the resurrection life in Christ. So question number eight, what is the invitation by Paul to Timothy to suffer all about? Why is he inviting, why is Paul inviting Timothy to suffer?

There's a word, that's very unique, and I'll attempt to say it. But it's, Paul put three Greek words together into a compound word, and he welded them into a single one, and it's sengokakapotheo. That wasn't too bad for a Texan. I missed the kakow instead, but kakow, kakow, I truly practiced.

So there's three words here that make up this invitation to suffer with, right? So the first word, sung, which means with, and then the second, kakos, means bad or evil, and ptheo means to suffer. So it means together to suffer hardships along with someone to share in a bad treatment. So Paul's not saying, be willing to suffer in general.

He's saying, suffer with me. Timothy, suffer with me. Be a fellow partaker. Join in. How would you like to have your spiritual mentor say, come suffer with me? Go for it. It's a prefix, you know, with or co, it's the same prefix that we have, you know, co-crucified, co-raised with Christ. And here we have suffer together, or co-suffer, or co-suffers.

And it reminds me of Philippians 3.10, right, that I may know him in the fellowship of his sufferings. It really is what the Christian life is all about, right? It's learning to fellowship with him in his sufferings, which is a really, doesn't get a lot of attention. That's right, but fellowship in what? In the sufferings. In his sufferings. Yeah, we're co-crucified, we're co-resurrected, and we co-suffer. We suffer with. Yes. for his namesake.

So the invitation is to fellowship, and the fellowship happens specifically in the hardship. Is that comforting or not? Is it scary to think about fellowshipping with the Lord and with Paul? The word fellowship is something I've kind of been blowing on a little bit lately, because what does it mean to have fellowship? It doesn't just mean a pop-up, right? Something I was reading in T. Austin Sparks, and he was, I don't know what it means to have fellowship, and it's those who, you have fellowship with those who think like you. You have a common way of thinking and understanding.

And so in order to know Christ Jesus, we've got to suffer like He suffered, or we'll never really know Him. We'll never have fellowship with Him, but He suffered unjustly. And that's why there's so much of that, I think, in the Christian life. And so we'll come to know him, come to understand him better. And there's the fellowship with Christ's sufferings. And in this case, Paul is saying, Timothy, suffer with me. I think the more you study, especially the epistles, the more you thirst.

There's lots of things that, there's external suffering from influences outside you who don't agree with you or whatever, but there's an internal war that's going on between the spirit of God and your sin nature, and there's suffering involved in that event all the time. a long time to realize that, you know, if I can get to the point where he's able to crush me and suffer all he wants, it's not part of who I am in Christ.

I'm wondering what Al said. So many people in your life have been your friends. Like when I first became a Christian, one of my closest friends said, Yeah Yeah, I mean I think there's there's probably a lot of us that have stories around having had relationships change quite drastically when You became a believer or you became serious about your faith. It's like they say like oh, you're you're not the same person anymore And that's a good thing to you But to them, it's an offense. And you suffer through those things. The flesh suffers like, oh man, I lost a friend. But in your relationship with the Lord, you grow in fellowship with Him through that. I know someone was literally told, I feel like there's someone new that's taking over your body and living through you. Yeah. So let me read from Macaulay.

He says, Timothy is to join with Paul in his testimony for Christ without hesitation. The request to join with me in suffering is one single triple compound Greek verb that we just went through. Put it together in one word and it points to joint participation and fellowship. And I like the fact that we haven't mentioned participation yet. So let's go forth on this concept.

The resultant meaning is to bear bad treatment along with. The policy of a Roman government toward Christianity had grown unfavorable, and many days of persecution lay ahead, but they provided no grounds for furling the sails of testimony. You know, reeling the sails in. Just because things get hard, we're not going to reel the sails in. So the afflictions of Christ aren't lacking anything for salvation. That's finished. Salvation is not the issue here.

But Paul writes in Colossians 1.24, he says, So that lack is not atonement. It's not being saved.

It's what the body still suffers as the gospel pushes into the hostile world that we live in. That's what he's talking about. And every faithful witness pays something. And Paul is inviting Timothy into that payment of suffering. Not for salvation, but for fellowship. So Paul's ministry is the cross lived out in one man, or in a man, sorry, not one man, but in a man. And he's inviting Timothy to step into that same kind of life, a crucified life. And if you think of the way the Lord introduced himself to Paul on Damascus Road, he said, why are you persecuting me? And if you think about that, not only do we fellowship with him in our suffering, but he fellowships with us. He literally feels the persecution, the pain, the suffering that we experience.

He's the one with that. I agree. A little bit of the greeky, geeky stuff. You know, the shame part. It is subjunctive. There's uncertainty in that, in the first part of the verse. But this is a command. It's active. We're to do this. Yep. Step into it. We're to be partakers of the afflictions. And so it's a little bit different. The ashamed is there's uncertainty. Don't be ashamed.

Right. But when he's telling us here, it's we are to active imperative. It's a command. Command. So we are to do this. In this case, this is about stepping into others' sufferings. So I want to expand on that a little bit because that costs us something when we suffer alongside others. And that's really what's at stake here.

And we also mentioned from the verse in Colossians 1.24, he mentions the body, suffering with the body. And in 1 Corinthians 12, 26, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. That's not just poetic. That's how the body actually works. Let me read it again. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

How many times you get to church and you hear somebody's afflictions and they're suffering, you're like, whew, I'll pray for you. But I'm sure glad it's not me. That's not what he's talking about here. It's actually the opposite. It's actually the opposite. So I think two places this lands today. You've got the persecuted church abroad, believers in Nigeria, North Korea, Iran. They're all dying this week for the same gospel that Paul died for. And you've got the believer sitting next to you.

You've got spouse, you've got issues with the marriage potentially, you've got the diagnosis, you've got your kids turning from the Lord, you've got friends that are making different decisions, you've got pressures and suffering. So joining in that suffering doesn't mean fixing them. And it doesn't mean preaching at them. It means showing up. That's what, Mike, you've told me many times. One of the reasons we suffer is so that we can fellowship with others who are going through the same types of things, and you show up. We're not fixing them, we're not preaching on them, necessarily.

We may share the Word with them, and obviously we would, but it's not a preaching of, it's a showing up and suffering alongside. So, I guess the question we can end with is, where, as you think about these truths, where is the Spirit prompting you to step in? Where is the Lord kind of tugging on your heart to step in? Maybe it's abroad, with the persecuted church abroad, or maybe it's just two seats away.

Final thoughts? you learn to walk beside people because somebody walked beside you. And they didn't lecture you, they didn't tell you, if you do this, then God will stop picking on you, or your problems will go away. That this is okay, this is the way that life is. That's right.

I think, you know, what comes to mind when you say coming beside her, in 2 Corinthians 1, It's blessed to be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all afflictions so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For just as the suffering Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comforts in abundance through Christ. You know yeah again not fixing it not fixing comforting those comforting showing up being showing up That's what I think of in those verses I think something else is that you'll often find in the New Testament that the suffering is directly related to the glory That's right, that's a good point All right, let's pray Father, how we thank you for the love that is the foundation of the Christian faith, and that grace is the operating system. And within that, Lord, we have the testimony of you. I just pray that we would be mindful that stepping away from that testimony prevents us from truly growing in exactly how you created us to be as a believer, and that suffering alongside others and their afflictions is part of the grace-based life, and that it can only be done Due to the fact that our sin nature has been crucified, we've been buried and been given new life, and this new life is capable of these things that Paul was asking Timothy, and we are being taught as well, and being asked and told to do as well. We know that all of that life comes from you. It is not our self-effort, it is from you, and so we're so thankful that you are gracious to us and that you equip us for these very things. We trust you with them. It's your name we pray, amen.