You Are Never Alone

The man is tired, and on the one hand, it makes sense, given the toll his body has taken over the years. 

He’s got his fair share of enemies, and they’ve worn him down, hiding their nets for him, digging pits for his life. They’ve hated him without cause, maligning his best intentions and repaying him evil for good. 

But at this point, sitting alone in his jail cell, his greatest pain isn’t so much from Hymenaeus and Philetus, or from Alexander the coppersmith who caused him great harm, but it’s that nobody has stood by him when he needed it the most. As the risk of associating with him increased, his closest friends, partners in the work, abandoned him — but he’s not bitter. He was never actually alone — not alone alone. 

That’s because even when his comrades left him, and it may have felt like the whole world was against him, the apostle Paul says that “the Lord stood by me and strengthened me” (2 Timothy 4:17). 

This sentence is one of the most important vantages into the life of Paul and his endurance in faith, and I believe it’s the tip of an iceberg conviction that only grew larger in his darkest moments. Paul knew Jesus is real, and that he is so real that he’s able to give comfort when nobody else does. 

That is the resounding message of the book of Second Timothy, which I’m eager to dig into this fall. Paul felt the antagonism against him, and he felt alone — not too unlike David in Psalm 35. 

Psalm 35 to 2 Timothy 4

Our psalm this weekend is a Psalm of David that models for us a faithful servant who is unjustly despised. In light of the Bible’s greater story, David is once again a type of Christ — Jesus actually quotes from Psalm 35:19 in John 15:25. Jesus was the true and final faithful servant who was “hated without cause.” And Jesus said that his followers should expect the same, because “a servant is not greater than his master.” And the reason Jesus told us all this was so that we would endure in faith (John 16:1) — which is exactly what Paul is doing in 2 Timothy, or as Paul calls it, “fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith” (see 2 Timothy 4:7). Paul was delivered from the lion’s mouth (2 Timothy 4:17–18) much like David petitioned (Psalm 35:17). 

But the part I’m most fascinated by was this moment of Paul’s loneliness that was met by Jesus’s presence.

There’s a parallel here to the experience David cites in Psalm 35:27. The entire psalm up to verse 27 has featured David’s enemies. Everybody, it seems, has turned against him, even those who were close to him, those for whom he mourned and prayed (see Psalm 35:13–14). And so David is making a series of imprecatory petitions. He wants God to punish these enemies who rejoice at his downfall, which seem to be everyone. And in the actual experience, in his felt reality, that could have been the case. But in verse 27 he prays:

Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, “Great is Yahweh, who delights in the welfare of his servant!”

Okay now — this means that not everyone is against him. There’s at least some people, at least somebody, who wants his good and delights in his blessing. And he wants them to be happy. Those who are pulling for me, give them cause to praise you!

Somebody Who Stands With

There were such people in David’s life, even in his deepest valleys. And there were such people for Paul, like Luke, Mark, Tychicus, and Timothy — all mentioned in Chapter 4.

But most noteworthy for Paul was Jesus himself: “At my first defense,” Paul says, presumably referring to a preliminary hearing before Caesar, “no one came to stand by me” (2 Timothy 4:16).

So even the people who would have rejoiced in Paul’s welfare, they weren’t there. They can’t always be there. But who can? Who does?

Jesus our Lord. 

He stood by Paul and strengthened him. And he will do the same for you — even when it feels like nobody else is. This is not a trite antidote for loneliness. It’s as real as Jesus is.

As Paul testifies in the pages of Scripture, so it is for you. You are never actually alone. Not alone alone.