Three Ways to Endure in Faith
So as we get started this morning, I need you to use your imagination for a minute: Imagine that there is a virus that has been brought into the church, and right away this virus started to spread, and for some people this virus ruined … their faith.
That was the situation going on when Paul wrote this letter to Timothy.
It was around the year 64, in the church at Ephesus, there were two men named Hymenaeus and Philetus, and they started spreading a virus in the church that was leading people to fall away from the faith.
And so the apostle Paul, here in verse 14, begins to tell Timothy the Pastor how he must defend against this virus. And what Paul says here is extremely relevant for us because this virus that threatened the church way back in the year 64 still threatens the church today: it is a virus of words.
I want you to see this in the text:
Look first at verse 14: see that phrase “quarrel about words.” That means simply “word-fight.” Paul says, don’t word-fight.
Look at verse 16: “avoid irreverent babble.”
Then in verse 17 this irreverent babble is called “their talk” (or it’s literally “their word”) — “their logos [their word] will spread like gangrene.”
Verse 18: These two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, have swerved from the truth, but in what way? How have they swerved (or deviated) from the truth? It was by saying something untrue about the resurrection.
The problem that Timothy is facing is the problem of false teaching, which carries the idea of word-fighting, or irreverent babble, or it’s a virus of words. False teaching is a word-virus.
And now we can see here in 2 Timothy 2 that the word-virus had a particular manifestation, but throughout the last two-thousand years of church history the word-virus has featured all kinds of different content, and therefore Paul’s exhortation to Timothy still applies to us today. Our context of redemptive history is the same as Timothy’s: the church in this world will always have a problem with false teaching, and false teaching will always lead to apostasy.
So we need to learn from Paul in this passage. Paul is speaking to Timothy the Pastor, but there are at least three lessons here that are relevant for all of us. These are three lessons that will protect you from false teaching and thus guard you against apostasy. So these are three lessons that will help you endure in faith. This is a how-to sermon.
Father, thank you for this moment when we open your Word together. Send your Holy Spirit in power to accomplish your will. In Jesus’s name, amen.
#1. Endure in faith by having a radical Godward orientation. (vv. 14–15a)
In verse 14 Paul is picking back up from what he said in verse 2. The “them” in verse 14 are the “faithful men” of verse 2 who Timothy is supposed to instruct in Paul’s example. Timothy is to remind these faithful men what Paul has said, and he’s to charge them before God not to word-fight, because squabbling over words does no good, but it only ruins the hearers.
And the “hearers” Paul mentions in verse 14 are the “others” he mentioned in verse 2 that the faithful men teach. So Paul is still instructing Timothy on how to train pastors who teach others, but then in verse 15 he focuses back on Timothy himself.
You, Timothy, you remember you’ve got to keep watch on yourself! When it comes to yourself …
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
Now what does this mean?
This is not an easy verse because it sounds like it might be a contradiction to what Paul has already said. Listen to this:
Chapter 1, verse 9: “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…”
Chapter 2, verse 15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved…”
So which is it? Are we saved by grace? Or, are we approved by doing our best?
Well, the answer is both — because Paul is talking about two different things. And this brings us to a larger topic that we need to talk about — the topic of pleasing God. (And this is not simple, so hang with me.)
We Can Really Please God
First, let’s be super clear. We are saved by grace and grace alone. Everyone is spiritually dead and can do nothing about it until the Holy Spirit gives us life to believe the gospel, and he unites us to Jesus where we become adopted sons and daughters of God. It’s all by grace, and you can never earn it. It is a gift that you can only receive. That’s salvation. And that’s one thing.
But then another thing is that when you receive salvation, when you’re saved, you are brought into a new relationship with God as your Father, and in that relationship it becomes possible for you to please God. The being “approved” here in verse 15 doesn’t mean to be justified or saved or loved, but Paul is talking about what is pleasing. This is about pleasing God.
And look, pleasing God does not make you more God’s child. You don’t become more saved! But pleasing God is pleasing God. As a son or daughter of God you can do certain things (or not do certain things) that delight the heart of God.
Which means the idea that God always relates to all his children in all the same ways despite what they do is just not true. Yes, if you trust in Jesus you are saved! “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” If you’re united to Jesus by faith, God looks at you as one of his children — but that doesn’t mean he looks at all his children in the exact same ways all the time. That way of thinking is a kind of unbiblical “equality” that actually undermines the very notion of real relationship.
Look, I love all eight of my children because they are my children, but when I give them something to drink, for some of them I make sure the cup has a lid on it! I relate to each of my children differently.
Sometimes, in a matter of minutes, I can speak sternly with one child and then belly laugh with another, and both actions flow from a heart of love for them as my children. They’re both my children who I love to death! The family part never changes! The love is there — AND BECAUSE we’re real persons in real relationship there is the possibility of different dynamics that will cause me to relate accordingly out of my love. Parents, you know what I mean.
So Christian, get this: you need to know that you are in the family. That never changes! The love is there! You are a son or daughter of God, AND AS a son or daughter you can bring joy to the heart of your Father — and if you bring joy to his heart he will relate differently to you than if you did not bring joy to his heart.
It is possible for you to please God. And because that’s true, because it’s possible for us to actually please our Father in heaven, we as Christians should be eager to please him!
The word here for “do your best” in verse 15 is the word to be eager. It’s something you’re putting energy toward. You’re thinking about it. You’re meaning to do it. You really desire to please God. You desire to stand before him as one who makes him proud, as it were.
How Does This Sound?
I’m not sure what you think when you hear this. For some of us, this might sound like a burden. We just want to push back and say something like, “No, God is always pleased with me!”
If you have something like that going on, it’s probably because you are confusing the opportunity to please God as an attempt to earn his love. And trying to earn God’s love is a burden — and it’s also impossible! You can’t earn his love! He just loves you, by grace. That’s the unchanging reality. Know that. Get that. Rest in that.
And now, grounded in the unchanging reality of God’s love, the opportunity to please God — wanting to please God — presents a whole new way to live.
This is a radical reorientation of what we’re used to — because most of us, most of the time, only think about pleasing ourselves and others, which is a problem. Because we’re always wanting to please somebody, and who you want to please is really what shapes your beliefs and your behaviors.
There’s no secret here. The first step toward apostasy happens when you start caring more about pleasing people than you do pleasing God. So this radical Godward orientation defends us against apostasy. It means to live everyday before and unto God’s face. It’s thinking about him, looking to him, eager to please him. We endure in faith by having a radical Godward orientation.
#2. We endure in faith by skillfully understanding the gospel. (vv. 15b–18)
So Paul tells Timothy to be eager to stand before God approved, to please God, and then he explains more about who this someone is: The approved one, this God-pleaser, is an unashamed worker. The meaning here for worker is one who labors. Think about a blue-collar, hands-dirtied, sweat-drenched worker who is unashamed — which means a worker who takes confidence in his work, “rightly handling the word of truth.”
And there’s a connection here that we might miss in the English translation. In the Greek, the word for “rightly handle” is the word: orthotomeo. It means literally to cut straight, which fits with this worker imagery. This worker who is not ashamed, but who takes confidence in his work, is a skilled worker who cuts straight the word of truth.
This phrase “the word of truth” is one Paul uses a couple other times in his letters, and in those places it’s clear he talking about the gospel. In Colossians 1:5 calls it “the word of truth, the gospel” (see also Ephesians 1:13). I think that’s what he means here, too. He’s talking about the gospel, the whole message of Jesus in accordance with the Scriptures. It’s important that we know the gospel here doesn’t mean something different from the Bible. This is the gospel that we only know from the Bible. So to devote ourselves to skillfully understand the gospel is to devote ourselves to the Bible.
And again, this is most relevant to pastoral ministry — it’s crucial to the calling of pastors — but this still applies to every Christian in that our knowledge of the gospel is a means for endurance. We especially see this in the passage when we notice the contrast going on:
Two Different Words
There are two different “words” in the passage:
In verse 15, there’s this phrase “the word of truth.”
In verse 17, there’s the phrase, “their talk [or their word] will spread like gangrene.”
And without going into too much detail on gangrene — you can google it later — gangrene is basically decomposing tissue within your body. It’s basically death in the body that spreads throughout the body as a bacterial infection. It’s an incredible image for false teaching in the church. False teaching is a word-virus.
So Timothy is to be skilled in the word of truth, but he’s to avoid this word-virus.
Because as this word-virus spreads, as this false teaching spreads throughout the church, it leads to more and more ungodliness.
Ungodliness, a Symptom
The situation Paul describes in this passage has to do with Hymanaeus and Philetus. They’re the ones who had deviated from the truth and they’ve been spreading the word-virus, and in verse 18 we see it had to do with the resurrection. They were telling people that the resurrection had already happened (they meant the end-time, final resurrection of believers). We don’t know the full details of this heresy, or what kinds ungodly behaviors it led to, but there’s enough here that we can make a decent speculation:
The cultural air that surrounded the church in Ephesus was Greek, and within the ancient Greek worldview there was a pretty stark dualism between the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual was good; the physical not so much. And in that context, if these two guys were saying the resurrection of believers has already happened, they were most likely saying that the resurrection is only spiritual. The spiritual part of people gets resurrected by faith in Jesus, they might say, and you become a new person spiritually — and that’s good and true — but then they’d add, “And that’s all. … The resurrection has already happened because it’s only spiritual, and there is no future resurrection of our bodies.”
Again, because the spirit is good, but the physical isn’t. The physical is unredeemable, and so this separates the spirit and the body, and if the two are entirely separate and neither have any bearing on the other, you can imagine how this might justify sins of the body.
Again, we don’t know the details, but it was probably something like this, and whatever it was, it was messing people up. It was destroying people’s faith. And ungodliness was the symptom, which makes sense. Sick doctrine leads to sick behavior. And in some cases, even, people look for sick doctrine to support sick behavior.
Exegetical Hack-Jobs
Don’t think that the hook of false teaching is mainly intellectual. It’s not. There are all kinds of intellectual side-steps to orthodox Christianity that are really just cover-ups for sin. And the greatest example of this in our day has to do with sexuality. There are some people and groups who have tried to completely revise historic Christian sexual ethics, and what do you think drives that?
It’s not that these people have been pouring themselves into understanding the meaning of the Bible, and they really just want to please God and be faithful, and in the process they discovered that Christians have gotten it wrong for two . Everybody knows that’s not what’s going on. But it all starts with sinful behavior, and then they have to go backwards and do an exegetical hack-job to try and justify it.
But if we can cut straight the word of truth, if we skillfully understand the gospel, we can spot the word-virus from by a mile away, and we can avoid it, like Paul says. This is one of the ways that we persevere in faith. We endure in faith by skillfully understanding the gospel.
#3. We endure in faith by remembering the church will endure. (v. 19)
When we get to verse 19, Paul is anticipating a question: If this word-virus is spreading throughout the church, and if it’s ruining the faith of some, what if the some become many? What if the many become all? What is going to keep this false teaching from completely taking over the church and destroying the whole thing?
That’s an important question, and Paul has an answer. He starts verse 19 with the conjunction “but” or “nevertheless.” He saying: Hey, although this word-virus is spreading and the faith of some is being ruined, God’s firm foundation stands.
The mention of God’s firm foundation is referring to an image of the church. The church will endure. The foundation of the church is unshakable. It’s firm and solid, and it has a seal written on it. There’s an inscription.
The Inscription of Truths
Have you ever written something in concrete? You know how it works. When the concrete is still wet, you can carve stuff into it and when it is dries it stays.
When I was a kid, my dad built a barn in our backyard with a concrete foundation. I remember the day my Dad poured the concrete, he had my brother and sister and me come and write something in it. And was probably nine or ten, and I took a stick and wrote, in all caps, BASEBALL IS LIFE. And if you were to visit my parents today, you can go to that spot, right by where the dogs used to stay, you can bend down, take the palm of your hand to smooth away all the dirt and debris, and you can still see it.
Now imagine that the church has a physical foundation. And you can think of a building like this, because that’s the image Paul uses. And imagine you’re able to crawl your way down to its foundation, and when you get there you realize: Wow, this foundation is firm! — and it’s actually 1,987 years old, and the foundation has an inscription written on it. And so you take the palm of your hand to smooth away all the dirt and debris, and you can read it. And then you realize these inscriptions are actually truths, and these truths are what the entire structure has been built upon, and they’re the confidence that the church will last. So what’s it say?
The inscription says: “The Lord knows those who are his.” And “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
The Story of Korah’s Rebellion
These inscriptions are a combination of Old Testament quotes, and most of it comes from one story in the Old Testament, in Numbers 16. This is the story of Korah’s rebellion, and we don’t really know to what degree Paul has this entire story in mind, but it’s interesting.
The story takes place after the exodus. Korah is the great-grandson of Levi, and he forms a faction of men within Israel who oppose Moses. They all come to Moses and contest his leadership, and say that they’re all holy, and it’s not right that Moses is over them. Well, Moses says to Korah and all these men, “In the morning the Lord will show who is his.” In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that Paul read, that phrase goes, “The Lord knows those who are his” (Numbers 16:5). That’s what Paul quotes.
So skip ahead to the next morning, and Korah and his faction, and Moses and the whole congregation, come together, and God is about to wipe out everybody, but Moses intercedes and asks God not to destroy everybody because of this one faction. And God says: Okay, but everybody needs to get away from Korah and his faction. So then Moses says to everybody, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men.” And that’s the same idea here in 2 Timothy 2:19, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
And in the story, the congregation hears what Moses says, and they separate from Korah, and then the ground opens up, swallows up Korah and the faction, and they die. But those who departed from Korah live. (This was social distancing before it was cool.)
And so we know, to some degree, Paul has this story in mind in 2 Timothy 2.
Why the Church Will Last
There was false teaching, a word-virus, in the church at Ephesus, and it was spreading, and it had the potential to wipe out the whole church — but how do we know it won’t? How do we know the church will make it?
Because God knows his people and his people are set apart.
First, there is the hidden knowledge of God. God is not outsmarted by apostasy. He’s not wringing his hands with worry that the whole church is going to fall away. Because God knows his people. And get this:
God’s knowledge of his people, which is hidden from us, is shown to us through the behavior of his people. And these go together to form our confidence.
God has a people, and you can recognize his people by how they live.
The plague of this word-virus will be stopped, and the church is going to make it, just like the church is always going to make it. And you, Christian, as a member of the church, can endure in faith by remembering that. Remember that church will endure.
And hey, it’s good to be on the winning team.
That is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is going to make it through. You, Christian, you are going to make it through. Because ultimately, our confidence is not the means that God will use to keep us, but it is God himself in the work of Christ.
Christ, the sure and steady anchor
Through the floods of unbelief;
Hopeless somehow, O my soul,
Now lift your eyes to Calvary.
This, my ballast of assurance;
See His love forever proved;
I will hold fast to the anchor;
It shall never be removed.
Jesus Christ is the son of God who has come to this earth to live in your place. He took all of your sins and guilt and shame, and the punishment you deserved, and on the cross he died for you. He was dead and buried for you, and then on the third day he was raised for you. He defeated death for you, and ascended to heaven for you, and then sent his Spirit for you. And by faith in him, by receiving what he has done, we are forgiven and we are saved, and we’re gonna make it.
And in this moment, now, as we come to this Table, we give him thanks.
The Table
First, if you’re here, or if you’re watching, and you’ve not yet trusted in Jesus, I want to invite you do that. Right now, turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus.
For those of us who have trusted in Jesus, let us take confidence in his death and resurrection. Let’s rejoice in his love and give him praise we receive the bread and the cup.
The body of Jesus is the true bread. The blood of Jesus is the true drink. Let us serve you.
