In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
The message below was spread out over two Sundays, Feb 24 and Mar 2.
There’s been a fierce argument over this past week on the importance of words. The two remaining Democratic presidential candidates have been going back and forth on how important words are. Since one of the candidates is a more inspiring speaker, the other one is naturally minimizing the importance of words and speeches.
I am biased in favor of words. As I read history, what I see is that great speeches and sermons and fireside chats can make a huge difference in the church, and in the world.
How much more so, then, can the words of Almighty God shape human events, and hearts, and minds?
Paul writes in our text about the ministry of proclaiming God’s Word – preaching and teaching. After thirty years of preaching and teaching, Paul gave Timothy his mission statement:
Preach The Word.
My message is influenced by a 1967 John Stott sermon on this text. I found it on allsouls.org, my favorite sermon site.
The Word verse 2
When Paul writes “Preach The Word,” he means to preach the Bible. Now I’m sure many of you have heard speeches posing as sermons: A scripture is read before the speech, but the speech is not really a sermon, it is not really The Preached Word, because the speaker, doesn’t preach from God’s word, rather he or she speaks from his or her thoughts, loosely connected at best to a biblical text, or two or three or ten.
To preach The Word in the way that Paul intends means to preach The Bible:
First of all, Paul means to preach from the OT, which was his Bible and the Bible of the early church, before the NT was fully formed. Paul wanted Christians to open Genesis, Isaiah, Chronicles Psalms, Proverbs – the Older Testament to God’s covenant love for us.
Secondly, by Preach the Word Paul means to preach what the Apostles taught, the particular Christian message, the good news that: Jesus died, rose from death, and is coming again, and that by trusting in Christ we can know God and be part of God’s mission to save the world.
Later on after the apostles had all died, the next generation came together and prayerfully discerned from among all the early Christian writings what was scripture, and what was not; what came from the apostles and what did not, what measured up to the standard of apostlic teaching and what did not. Guided by the Holy Spirit, this was the process by which the NT was formed.
And so for us having both OT & NT in our hands, “Preach the Word” means to preach the OT, preach the NT, and in particular to preach the message about Jesus and his mission to save the world.
So the first phrase Paul uses to describe God’s message in v.2 is The Word.
The second phrase Paul uses in verse 3
sound doctrine v. 3
What did Paul mean by this phrase, sound doctrine? What does he mean when he predicts the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine?
One way to restate “sound doctrine” in light of Paul’s Greek original would be to say “healthy, or wholesome teaching.”
We know from our own experience that we as fallen people do not naturally gravitate towards what is healthy for us.
Paul wrote that people do not naturally seek out wholesome teaching, but he goes on to say (paraphrased) you, Timothy teach wholesomely in an unwholesome world. Give them what is right, what is proven, what is good for them, even when it opposes everything else they are hearing; teach them God’s Word. Don’t be tempted to always give them what they want; rather, give them what they really need, what is good for them, what will feed them, what will cause them to grow and become stronger.
Imagine if we gave our kids only what they asked for instead of what they really needed. What would your children’s world look like if they had only the things they asked for, and nothing else? I think we’d be looking at lots of candy, toys..
Kids ask for a lot of neat things, but besides giving them some of what they want, our job is to give kids a lot of what they need. Love. Affirmation. Security. An introduction to Jesus Christ. Responsibility. A sense of right and wrong. And of course Vegetables.
Paul knows that many would be begging for something new, fresh, exciting, interesting. Toys and Candy. A little of this and a little of that.
But Paul knew that to know God, people needed the whole Bible taught consistently, faithfully, soundly.
Paul knew that to be a part of God’s mission, people needed to understand who God is:
One God existing eternally in three persons.
Paul knew that to be whole, people needed to hear about
– the Father and his love
– The Son and his grace
– The Spirit and his peace
Paul wanted Timothy to give his people what is good for them – wholesome, healthy teaching about God and his Ways; in other words, sound doctrine.
The third phrase Paul uses is in v. 4,
the truth v.4
What does Paul mean when he writes: They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ?
We see examples in the Bible of people easily diverted from what is central, from what is most important. It’s not only today that we humans have short attention spans; this phenomenon of people becoming easily distracted has been around forever.
The classic example is Moses going up to visit with God on Mount Sinai. Moses was about to meet with God. This is a pretty big deal.
Instead of sitting silently, or worshiping God, or praying for Moses at this most important moment, what did God’s people do?
They built a giant statute of a calf, and begin to worship that.
In the NT, reading the letter to the Hebrews, it is clear that some believers had moved away from direct worship of God and had begun to worship angels. Some easily distracted people began to take their eyes off of Christ and ask, well wasn’t Moses and weren’t the angels better than Jesus in some ways?
Talk about being distracted… Think of Jesus’ disciples, so easily side-tracked from Jesus and his mission, so quick to argue, to eager to fight and to jump to conclusions.
Even in some parts of God’s church today, people are easily distracted by leaders who stray away from what is central. These influential Christians, mostly to press their personal issues or to make a name for themselves, promote teachings, or doctrines, that are in direct conflict with God’s word.
They twist the truth about God and ask people to believe made up stories, myths and fables and other untruths that are so very interesting but ultimately untrue and empty, leading nowhere but to blind paths and dead ends.
Paul, by using the word truth, is saying that what we have in scripture is unchangeable. It comes from God and is given to us. Through humans and cultures to be sure, but form God. It is not for us to twist, change, or neglect the parts that we disagree with.
Rather, we are to approach God’s Word with hearts and minds wide open, to be led into the truth by the one who revealed it in the first place, the Holy Spirit.
As students of God’s Word, we seek to understand and apply God’s Word with minds and hearts engaged, studying diligently and praying fervently.
We want God’s Word to sink into us, to shape us, to lead us to the truth about God and His ways.
Some preachers and scholars act as if God’s word is a lump of clay to be shaped by them into something usable. This is folly. God’s word has been given to us, from God, through people. God is the potter, we are the clay. God uses the truth of his Word to mold us and to shape us
So thus far we have learned to approach the Scriptures as God’s Word, as Sound Doctrine, and as The Truth.
In discovering just how valuable God’s Word is, we’ve made an amazing find. This masterpiece which we can hold in our hands, and which anyone can own for just a few dollars, is in fact priceless.
Why? Because it is a message from God to us.
Back before we really knew its value, when the Bible was just a book those religious people read, when it was perhaps gathering dust on the bookshelf
Back then, we didn’t think much about what we should do with our Bible; after all, it was just cloth and paper like any other book
But now that we realize the value of it, we need to ask God a question – what do we do with this true, sound, healthy Word, this masterpiece- this message from God to us.
04 VISUAL PREACH THE WORD
Paul’s supplies an answer to this question in the central phrase of this passage –
that wonderful motto or mission statement for all Christians and for the whole church:
PREACH THE WORD
Long before there was internet, TV, radio or even newspapers, town criers stood out in to the public square, loudly proclaiming the news of the day.
This verb translated “Preach” means to proclaim, to publicly declare God’s message in the public marketplace of ideas and relationships.
And so besides preaching from the pulpit in the sanctuary, we as a church are called to get the word out there into the public marketplace; out into places like Starbucks, myspace, facebook and youtube, where people exchange messages and ideas, hopes and dreams.
It’s pretty cool that since we began posting on youtube last year, more than 400 times each month someone watches one of our videos. I really didn’t expect much action at all, yet in a small way, but beyond our modest expectations, the Word is getting out beyond our walls into the public arena.
Driving by our late 1960’s-designed campus (beautiful courtyard, nice interior, but someone stark-looking from the street), most people don’t seem to notice the signs & crosses. We’ve had comments that our buildings look like an office complex or a government facility.
What can we do about that? Well we have a wonderful public square here at the corner of busy “H” street, as people travelling north and south have to pause and wait for the 4 way stop, along with a steady stream of walkers. We are now considering ways in which to make our message more visible at the corner; to get the word out that Jesus is alive and that God’s Word is preached and taught in this place. The multi-talented Nick and I will be talking about increasing our visibility this week with our building & grounds guys… Nick has designed our new logo and is preparing the website for re-launch on Palm Sunday. Small but necessary steps…
We’re incrementally more effective in spreading the Word. Small steps so far, with another step coming this Thursday evening as OneLife launches. We want to get the Bible in people’s hands and Jesus in peoples hearts – and so we are starting a relational and contemporary Thursday night ministry geared to reaching people would not normally think of attending church on Sundays.
Bottom line – we are committed to preaching the Word, to getting God’s message out into the world.
Turning to today’s text, we hear the language of persuasion – the scripture is urging us to not be dissuaded from proclaiming God’s message. Paul’s letter to Timothy was written in the ancient style of paraenesis, or exhortation, urging. A paraenetic letter is a letter that urges the reader to take particular actions. In our text today, we read of four exhortations to preach the word.
First , preach the Word in light of the reality of Jesus Christ
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word…
Notice that Paul writes about the God and Jesus in both the present and the future. Jesus stands with God as witness to our preaching, and Jesus stands ready to come again and wrap up the salvation of which we preach.
The point here is that Jesus is real, that he is really with us, and that he really and truly returning at the end of history. The story of his coming the first time, and the promise of his future return are not some made up jive. Jesus is real. He really came, lived and died for our sins. He truly rose from the grave. He is now present in this world, set high above as king, yet so near by His Spirit, empowering us in His mission. And truly he is coming back to finish everything left undone, to put the new heavens and new earth into action once and for all.
We spread God’s Word in light of the reality of Jesus, knowing that he stands with us as we preach, and that he stands ready to return when the time for preaching is done.
Second, preach God’s Word both urgently and consistently
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season… 2 Tim 4:2
In Ecclesiastes we read that there is a time or a season for every human activity a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
Yet God wants us to be ready always – whatever season of life we find ourselves in – he wants us to always be ready to share our faith, to spread God’s Word in season and out of season.
God wants us to preach and teach and otherwise spread God’s Word with a consistent urgency and passion:
– at all times and in all places
– both when it goes well and when it does not,
– when it is convenient to us and when it is not, consistently, in season and out of season whether times seem favorable or not, whether it is a bother or not – keep on spreading the word like a farmer sows seed…
This instruction is not just for pulpit preachers but for all who hold God’s Word in their hands, for all who hold Jesus in their hearts. We are to take this word – this masterpiece – and get it out there! We’re not to wait for the world come here to find Jesus, our commission is to take Jesus with us out into the world.
But what about people’s feelings? What about people’s right not to be offended, not to be intruded upon? Shouldn’t we leave the evangelism, the persuasion to the Baptists and Pentecostals? We’re proper Presbyterians after all.
John Stott, and Anglican priest, speaking to a reserved British audience
taught that we can share the Word, which sometimes offends on its own, without being offensive ourselves…..
Stott exhorts us to share the gospel:
* Urgently, but not rudely, or insensitively
* Clearly, yet not as a pusher, rather as someone who gently invites people to trust in Christ
* Faithfully, but not as someone who has faith all figured out.
Third, preach the Word practically, with real world relevance
…correct, rebuke and encourage… 2 Tim 4:2
When we preach, teach or share God’s word, it should in connect with people where they are.
• It should have a practical impact on people’s lives.
• It should relate to them where they are.
• John Stott calls for Christians to know God’s Word and, equally as thoroughly, to know and be engaged in this world. One foot in scripture and one in the world. His book on preaching is called Between Two Worlds.
Paul in our text uses three very practical verbs to describe the scripture’s relevance –correct, rebuke and encourage
These three verbs describe ways in which the variety of messages in Scripture can address a variety of people in various situations:
* When we are full of doubt, God’s Word can correct or convince us out of doubt and into faith
* When we are full of sin, God’s Word can rebuke or convict us of sin and cause them to turn from sin and towards God through Christ,
* When we are full of fear, God’s Word can encourage, lift up, cast a vision of a good God and of a hopeful future walking with a mighty God who protects us and assures us that there is no reason to fear or fret because God is with us..
Some have called the Bible an owner’s manual. I wonder what would happen if you opened the owner’s manual to your car and found 66 separate books – history, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy about your car’s future, etc..
A better description of the Bible would be to say it is the story of God. From cover to cover the Bible tells of a God who begins by creating and ends by re-creating.
In between the Bible is a great big epic story of a God who creates, seeks and saves, and of people being encountered by God who calls them into relationship. Some run towards God and embrace Him; others run away.
But while the Bible is a great big epic, it is also a very practical guide to daily living, which is where we get the “owner’s manual” description.
The Bible can be applied directly to so many life-situations:
gossip, conflict, decision-making, doubt, fear, worry, stress, sickness, you name the human condition and the Bible has something to say about it.
So the Bible is a practical book, and as we spread God’s Word, we can help others to understand just how relevant it is to their lives.
Fourth, preach the Word carefully and patiently, allowing God to bring the results
…with great patience and careful instruction.
But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
These two verses sound a bit like a commitment to military service. Those of us enrolled in God’s service (all believers) have duties to discharge, like a soldier does.
The work we do is the work of the evangelist, the one who spreads the good news message, the Word of God, the gospel.
The life we live is blessed with God’s presence, but it’s sometimes very hard.
The stress level gets high, yet we must keep our heads screwed on straight, keep on thinking clearly, not letting ourselves get sidetracked or react sinfully.
We hold in our hands the Bible, God’s Word, to be preached and shared anywhere there are people who need to hear it. Not just on Sundays, but every day. Not just to church people, but to everyone.
Preach the Word: urgently, passionately, consistently, patiently, practically; all by the power of the Spirit, in the presence of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
run to Sunday!
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