Endurance for the Gospel

Okay, you should have less than three questions, yes? Well, let's back up and read through the three verses that we're working through, and then we'll start in with question number nine today. So if somebody could read 2 Timothy 1, 7, 8, and 9 for us.

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me as prisoner But join me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God Who has saved us and called us with the holy calling not according to our worth but according to his own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. Okay, so question nine starts off with that word but So but join me right So the question is, how does the word but contribute to the ability to endure suffering? So be not ashamed, rather join with me in suffering for the gospel, and then according to the power of God.

That's what we're gonna be looking at here. This is a pretty critical word transition that adds to Timothy, Paul's direction to Timothy. And so I'm gonna read from the commentary notes. The negative and positive aspects of verse eight are distinguished by the word but.

The phrase according to the power of God is connected with the verb be thou partaker. It is the power given by God which enables Timothy to endure suffering for the sake of the gospel. This is ministered to the yielded saint by the Holy Spirit. And I'll read Wiest's expanded translation of verse eight. He says, but be a partaker with me in my sufferings for the sake of the good news, being a partaker of these sufferings according to the power of God. So being a partaker of these sufferings according to the power of God.

What does that mean? What's Paul telling Timothy? He's not even telling him that he's going to be suffering, and why was he going to have to suffer? What was it that Paul says is connected, and he's telling him not to be ashamed of? It was the testimony of the Lord, right?

Remember, Paul's in prison in Rome under Nero, He's in his, what we would probably conclude in some of his last days, he's very much urging Timothy to come and visit him. We don't know that he was able to do that. We think maybe, but at this point, Paul is telling Timothy, you're going to suffer just like me. We're under Christian persecution like never seen before, under Nero.

And, Timothy knew that if he went and visited Paul, he'd be a marked man. You know, I don't know what kind of gel cell exactly it looked like. I've done some of my own exploration on it, but just imagine it as being a hole looking down to where Paul was in prison, chained.

He had parchment, and he had a quill, and he had some ink and a little light. That's all he's got. And he's saying, come visit me. And when you visit me, you'll be able to reach your hand through this hole that's gated. where they drop the food down and whatever, and I'll be able to hold your hand and we'll be able to joyfully reunite, and I'll be able to encourage you. So Paul's thinking of it maybe from that perspective, and Timothy's thinking, if I go and I visit him, I'm marked. I'm marked.

So it was the suffering for the gospel that Paul was encouraging this young pastor in. And he moves on to say, don't be ashamed, but join with me in the suffering of the gospel. And then he says, according to the power of God. And so that phrase, the word but, that phrase modifies the suffering, not the gospel. Timothy isn't being asked to suffer for a powerful gospel. He's being told the suffering itself happens by God's power supplying him. How does that work together? Paul isn't telling Timothy, suffer on your own effort, suffer on your own steam.

He's saying, no, when you suffer, suffer according to the power of God. And that same power, that's that dunamis power that we saw in verse seven. And that power was already given to him, wasn't it? But now the power holds him up when the testimony costs him the most.

What's a believer's or Timothy's role in that? In other words, Paul is telling them, join with me in the sufferings by the power of God. If I'm Timothy, what's that look like? Well, if you're told, let me reverse the question back to you guys from a class perspective.

If you're told that you're going to suffer, you're going to suffer for the gospel message. Maybe you're going into a family environment where certain family members are not interested whatsoever. and you're going to face some suffering for doing that. You're gonna bring up things that are gonna cause, that could cause issue, right? And you know that you're going to suffer.

What's your first inclination? Okay, I got this. I can do this. And then you probably, you know, if you're like me, I'm like, okay Les, this is gonna be tough, but we can do this. Maybe Timothy thought or Paul wanted to remove the temptation to think of it as, I got this.

He says, no. The power of God has got this. That's how you're going to suffer. The same power that brought you the gospel and that you stand in the gospel is gonna get you through and carry you through that suffering. It's not your endurance. But isn't that the inclination to think of, well, when I go into a tough situation where I'm going to have to stand up for the Lord, so to speak, I'm gonna stand firm. But the problem with that statement is it's I stand firm. Well, remember the analogy that one of the commentators gave us last week about the storm's coming, don't furl the sails, don't roll, roll the sails up, says the same wind that took you into that storm is gonna carry you right through it, and that's the power of God. You don't grit your teeth and survive your testimony. You walk through it in the Spirit. The only way that the power of God is made evident in your testimony is by you being yielded to the Spirit to walk you through that.

Ever been asked to give your testimony publicly? Those are tough things to do. When I first became a believer, I was involved in a lot of different college ministries, and they were really interested in the things that I had gone through as a young man and eventually a walking believer, and they wanted me to talk about it. But as I started to share my testimony, I started to realize that there was a lot of it about me. I turned, I changed, I, you know. And what soon came to light was that it was God's testimony, and it was by His power that I was saved.

And when it comes to sanctification, it is by his power that you were set apart. That power does not change from the gospel to the walk. And in this case, the walk involves suffering for Timothy. So here in this verse, we asked the question, how does the word but contribute to the ability to endure suffering? Well, if it's not according to the power of God, who is it according to? Self. And Paul says, you're not gonna be able to survive if you're doing it on your own. You can't endure suffering without the power of God. It's got to be according to.

We'll talk about that a little bit here as we move in. So as we move to the next question, we get into verse nine. And I'll read, we expanded translation, just kind of walk us into question number 10 here. The one who saved us and divinely summoned us in the sphere of a holy summons, not according to our works, but according to his own private purpose and grace, which grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. So there's a lot packed in here. We've got four additional questions centered around this verse nine. So the question 10 is, how would you describe God's act of saving a believing sinner? According to this verse.

The one who saved us, divinely summoned us. We'll start with the word who saved us. It says that, in the notes, Paul's argument is that since God saved us and called us at a definite point in time, that should strengthen our faith in the continuance in the future of his gifts of power to us. God the Father is the one who has saved us. That's the doctrine of justification. So God the Father is the one who saved us. Justification. God the Father is the one who called us with a holy calling. That's the doctrine of sanctification.

So the call of God here is, of course, that effectual call unto salvation in which the sinner called willingly accepts the salvation God offers him. And it goes on to say, Pauline teaching is to the effect that even the appropriating faith is given in sovereign grace by God and is part of the salvation given. You've got the words, holy calling, who is saved by divine summons, a holy calling. What does holy calling mean?

I think it takes a believer, a young believer, quite some time to really settle down on the fact that he got saved. He didn't save himself. I think everything you do early on as a believer You try to make it about you without even thinking about it. But the Word of God is pretty careful to put the credit where it should be. I love to tell my Catholic buddies who try so hard to be good at this age in their life that in my Bible it doesn't say David the Savior. It says Jesus the Savior. You're not the Savior. He is. But were you called with a holy calling? Yeah. To what? Okay. To faith? I think there's two aspects to this.

You were called unto salvation, but you were also called to suffer. So this idea carries The word holy calling, it's both the invitation God extends to a holy life and the holy life he calls the believer into. So it's not only salvation, but it's sanctification. He's calling you into not only being, having been saved by his grace, but also living that life set apart. And that's a summons. That's what that word means. The calling and the conduct are bound together here. for Timothy, and they're bound together for you too. So, the one who saved us and divinely summoned us in the sphere of a holy summons. That's how we used to explain it.

Divinely summoned in the sphere of a holy summons. You ever think of yourself in the sphere of a holy summons? But being divinely summoned, that's not invited. It's not asked. It's not pursued by some kind of church procedure. You're summoned by God himself in the same way that Timothy was. Nobody needs to anoint you with oil so that you know that you have been holy summoned or divinely summoned into holy living. God did that.

So this is positional language, isn't it? Anybody remember when they got summoned? So this is positional language. You weren't just called, and Timothy wasn't just called to a holy life from the outside, you were placed inside a holy summons that now defines your location. This is part of your position. We think about five identification truths. Well, included in that positional identification is your holy summons. That's your location. And the summons is itself a sphere, a place with which you stand.

And that's where Paul was urging Timothy to stand in which he had been called. So there's those two doctrines in one sentence that we talked about, saved being justification, that legal declaration that the believer stands righteous in Christ, and then you have called. sanctification, the believer set apart for God's own use. So, Timothy was being urged by Paul to stand firm, not shrink away from the testimony of the Lord because he was set apart for God's own use according to this divine summons.

Is that making sense so far? So both of these are initiated by God. Salvation and the call, these are both initiated by God. And they're based on what he did, a finished work. Neither is contingent for Timothy to keep it up. Same goes for you. This is God's calling. This is positionally where God has placed you.

So if you look at Ephesians 2.8, you'll see some of the same type of grammar. It's called a paraphrastic perfect. That's a new one. Yeah, double check that one for me. Give me a Greek check back there or a grammar check.

But what this means is that we were completely saved in past time with the results that your salvation persists through the present. So if you're trying to figure out whether your salvation is going to hold, the question is settled in the tense of this verb. It already held. It still holds. It will hold.

So Paul essentially was saying, Timothy, God said it, and that settles it. And Timothy had to make a decision, and what was his decision? Did he believe it? That's the same for you and I. Completely saved in past time with the results that your salvation persists through the present.

Already held, still hold, it will hold. No matter what you have to walk into, this truth holds based on the location that God has called you into. through his divine summons. We're ready to move on to question 11. Our thoughts there. Can you repeat the sentence again? I'm sorry. It's the paraphrastic, P-E-R-I-P-H-R-A-S-T-I-C, perfect.

Completely saved in past time with the result that your salvation persists through the present You were saved you're being saved that salvation is persisting through I find it interesting that in verse 8 he talks about the power of God verse 9 a holy calling that there is a power struggle here.

And there's a struggle of the sin nature that doesn't want to believe, is fearful, whatever, and is powerful. On the other hand, Timothy's a believer. He's indwelt by the Spirit of God. He has this calling, and he has Christ in him. And I think part of the argument is that Christ is way more powerful than the fear that you have. He's way more powerful than the doubts that you have. He's way more powerful than the timidity that you have.

And he just doesn't say, trust me about that. He's gonna bring you through so that you understand, oh yeah, I don't have to worry because God is who he says he is and all this opposition and powerful opposition, I don't have to trust that anymore. I can trust God and his power because he said so. And so I'm left with, I can believe him and I can trust him because he educated me about that. I trust him because I know he's trustworthy. He demonstrated to me that he was. Maybe put it that way. Absolutely. Let's carry that thought into question 11. Was our calling by God according to our works?

And this word, according, I'll just kata, according to, in its local sense, means down, carrying the idea of domination, control, the standard that governs, what governs the act. And we maybe think about the idea of domination or control or a standard and be like, oh, that sounds too legalistic or something like that. What would be legalistic if you weren't dominated? Because what would you be relying on? Self. So this word according to is really important. Here's what the expositors say.

This act of God saving and calling us was not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace. The word down has the idea of dominion or control. Thus salvation is not dominated or controlled by the works of the sinner. The works of a sinner do not enter into the economy of God, whereby he gives salvation to the individual, all of which means that salvation is not earned nor merited by anything that the sinner does. God does not use, and this is Macaulay, God does not use our works as a standard for saving us, nor does God lay out our works to determine whether or not to save us. It is rather his own pleasure and self-giving love that moves him to provide salvation. Nothing is more germane to the theology of Paul in regards to God's grace. It is rather his own pleasure and self-giving love. That's why he saves. Thankfully so. Thankfully so.

So when Paul says, not according to our works, he's not just saying works didn't earn it. He's saying that works didn't even enter the conversation. They weren't a part of the picture. God is sovereign, and he saves out of his own pleasure and self-giving love. So your works didn't govern that decision, did they?

That's the saved by grace through faith. Saved by grace through faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gracious act and it's by faith, a non-meritorious act of faith. It's not of any works or anything that we do. It's a gracious gift given to us through faith in what He said. That's right, and any works that we can produce has nothing to do with the economy of how God saves. Because, we're going to learn, there's a time factor here, or a lack of time factor, possibly I could say it, we'll get into it.

But, it's His own pleasure. He does it because it suits Him to do so. Because of His love. And that's why you have the grace that you have from the Ephesians passage that you just mentioned. Also, if it was by works, we've mentioned this before, it would make God a debtor. He owes us something because of what we did. And that's impossible to make Him a debtor. So, that's the key to all this. If it was based on anything that we did, that would mean God owed us something.

Well, grace is stripped of every loophole here. Our religious mind tries to find a way to get involved in this grace, but this is according to Him. This is completely to his own pleasure. You had nothing to do with how he chose to love you and give himself to you. We're gonna talk about how he does that, how he communicates that to Timothy.

But if salvation were by works, every saved person would have reason to boast. And God would become a debtor. He owe you because of something that you were able to boast about. if that were the economy that he saved within. If salvation were by faith plus works, then the math ends in the same thing, boasting. You can claim boasting. So it has to be pure grace according to his own pleasure and his own self-giving love.

And Paul shuts that door, not according to works, not even a little. You're not adding to this economy of God's self-pleasure and his love. So he shuts down the according to works really quickly, and then he moves on to something that, asking question number 12, he said, what was God's purpose in salvation? And I'll ask you maybe a follow-up question.

What does it stir in you to hear that your salvation is for his glory and not yours? God saved you for his glory, not yours. So would you say this principle that we're discussing right now follows through for the whole Christian life? Does this principle follow through for the whole Christian life? When you're 80?

Or after I'm saved, do I now want to keep score and build up enough points so that I find myself in a better position when the Lord takes me home? Yeah. Do my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds after I get saved so as to assure myself of having done the good, fighting the good fight? Yeah. I don't think the principle ever changes. The principle never changes. Yeah, I agree.

And the reason is because the purpose of it is not yours. The purpose is His. So Paul names what does dominate salvation here. And it's his own purpose. So what is that purpose? I'll read. It is dominated by God's purpose in salvation, that of glorifying himself in the bestowal of salvation and in the life of the person who is the recipient of that salvation. That's you.

Salvation, therefore, can never be earned. If it could, the sinner would be glorified. Salvation must be a free gift with no strings tied to it. And that is grace, the act of God giving salvation as a free gift to one who does not only not deserve it, but who deserves the punishment for his sins. See the contrast there?

And Wiest has this verse translated, according to his own private purpose and grace. Private, his own private purpose. What does that mean? If it's his private purpose, what do you know about it? Well, you wouldn't if you weren't taught or told. Because it's private, it belongs uniquely to God. It's unshared by man and uncontingent on man. His own purpose is his private business. So your salvation doesn't ride on something that you supplied. It rides on a purpose God kept entirely to himself until he revealed it in who?

His son. You didn't consult on it. Anybody remember saying, hey, I know you're planning this big thing, but I heard your son's going to have to die. And then later I've heard that I have to die there too. And I don't really like that part. You didn't get to consult on that. You didn't get to modify the plan. You are the recipient of what was already decided in God's private purpose. You're the recipient.

So what is the purpose? What is God's ultimate purpose? To glorify himself, right? But he does it in salvation and in the living it out through the sinner. That's his purpose. So why salvation can't be earned? The moment any part of it gets credited to the recipient, the glory splits and you get a little bit. It's not God's private purpose.

God doesn't split his glory. He places you in it, but he doesn't take you out. He doesn't take his glory out of himself, out of his son, and out of the triune God and place it on the believer. He places the believer in his son. He does not split his glory between man and himself. And this was his private purpose.

Isaiah 42.8 says, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another. It remains in him. The only way for you to share in that glory is for you to be placed in him. Glory doesn't extend outside of his person.

So salvation must be a free gift. You can't, it's not by works, and it's according to his own private purpose. That's what grace is. God giving salvation as a free gift to one who doesn't just not deserve it, he deserves the opposite. God absorbing the wrath, his justice required in his son, and handing the sinner the salvation that son purchased.

So the cross is the hinge point of your entire identity. And that goes on into your, it didn't just happen at salvation, the cross is the hinge point for your identity and sanctification as well. Everything about who you are now, saved, called, holy, hidden in Christ, turns on what he did on the cross.

And that was his own private purpose. He did it out of his own pleasure and self-giving love. That's what Timothy's being asked to wrestle with by Paul here. And you could almost say that the freer the gift, the brighter the glory. That's how God functions. He's glorified. He glorifies himself more as he more freely gives.

That was his own decision. That was the math that he decided on in the eternal counsel. And I'm at time. Oh yeah? Yeah. And I was just getting ready to go into 13, but... Question 13, can God's grace ever not be associated with Christ Jesus? I'll read the notes here real quick.

The term which was granted is the Greek word meaning to give and is the same term used in John 3.16, which says that God gave his only begotten son. The words in Christ Jesus show that God's, and get this, super bounding grace must not be disassociated from Christ. All of God's blessing is channeled to us through Christ and because of Christ.

So this verb here is the same verb used in John 3.16. God so loved the world that he gave. And what God gave then is the same thing he's granting now, his son.

Grace is not an attribute God exercises toward you in addition to giving you Christ. Grace is God giving you Christ. We've got a really good definition of grace by Macaulay. But if you wanted to summarize it even further, what is grace? It's God giving you his son. Today, you're saved. You've got a whole day ahead of you where you're gonna be making decisions about where grace enters into your life. Is that where you're standing? And if you're standing in grace, where are you standing?

In Christ. God's grace is always associated with His Son. It's completed in His Son. Every blessing, every position, every promise, channeled through Christ and because of Christ. You try to receive grace apart from Christ and you don't get grace. Because there's nothing to receive. He is the gift. He is the channel. He is the location.

So we talk about exchanged, not improved. He has to exchange our life in order to show us that grace. He can't improve our life to reveal that grace to us. I think you have to realize that we are a brand new creation, totally, and we can't apply anything to the old creation that's written here. It all has to be the new creation.

That's right. All of that so that you can be a recipient of God's grace who is Christ, right? Being placed in Him. Let's pray. Father Howie, thank you for these truths that you encouraged Timothy through Paul and how applicable and important they are for us today to recognize that this purpose, this purpose of salvation and the Christian life is private to you. It was decided before time and you called us and summoned us into that holy calling. And it's not according to our works.

And it's not according to a grace that is outside of your Son. And we thank you so much that all that we possess and all that we have power to do is by simply yielding to the power of your Spirit in our life. And that grace is completely contained in your Son. And so Lord, we are recipients and we are just so grateful for the grace that you've shown us and given to us and that we've received in your son. And just pray for a wonderful rest of the day and fellowship together. It's your name we pray, amen.