Strong in the grace of God. Look at verse one of 2 Timothy chapter two. Thou therefore my son, Paul speaking to the young man Timothy who he had left at Ephesus to be a leader, a guide, an elder, even a pastor, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

One of the things that the Holy Spirit does for us when he brings us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light in the new birth, is he reveals to us our utter sinfulness and depravity and weakness and disability, inability to save ourselves. He reveals to us that were it not for the absolute, sovereign, powerful grace of God, we would never, never be saved and have eternal life. He brings us down, but he doesn't leave us there. By the grace of God, he brings us down, but he lifts us up.

But not looking within, not looking to ourselves and our own strength. but looking to Christ, the mighty conqueror. The one who conquered sin, the one who conquered the law, conquered the world, and conquered the devil. Our hope, our joy, that's where the Holy Spirit leaves us with nothing, no one to look to but Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, the God-man. And he shows us that our only strength to be saved and to persevere in the faith and the glory is not in ourselves, not by our own power, not even our own will, but in Christ Jesus alone.

Strong in the grace of God which is in Christ Jesus. I put in your lesson, the kind of strength and virtue we need to withstand opposition and persecution from the world does not come from the flesh. The flesh, that part of us, you know, I know people get confused about this, but that principle of sin that still resides within us is in total and complete union with the world. But we have overcome that, not in our own strength. See, the flesh doesn't kill the flesh or conquer the flesh. We overcome that because Christ has overcome it.

Paul wrote about that in Romans chapter seven, when he was talking about his struggle within himself in the flesh. And he came to the conclusion, he said, oh, wretched man that I am. He didn't say, notice there in Romans 7, that's 24 and 25, he didn't say, oh, wretched man that I was. He said, oh, wretched man that I am. And what he was talking about is not concerning his strength in the grace of God in Christ, but within himself. He even made statements like this. He said, I know I want to do good. But he said, not only do I not do good, I don't even know how to. Now that's our case. That's why we need the word of God. Number one, that's why we need Christ. But that's why we need the word of God and the spirit of God. So it doesn't come from us.

Paul made this statement in one of the letters to Corinth. He said, when I am weak, then I'm strong. Well, what do you mean by that, Paul? Are you just speaking in platitudes and contradictions and mysticism? No. What he's saying is when I recognize my own weakness, that's when I turn to and look to Christ even more, and there's my strength. Can you conquer sin? I can't either. Sin will defeat me every time, but it will not and cannot defeat my Savior. Cannot. Think about it, Satan, that powerful devil. I think about old Peter, you know, when Christ looked at him, he said, Satan desires to sift you as wheat. And then he said these words, you know, He said, but I pray for you. Now there's the strength. Now we're to pray. But the power that's in prayer is not in us or in our prayers, it's in Christ to whom we pray. We have a great high priest who's passed through into the heavens. And how do we turn back Satan? You can wear all the crosses you can bear around your body and that won't turn back Satan. You can slash what they call holy water all over the building, and it won't turn back Satan. How do you turn back Satan? What does Revelation 12 tell us? The blood of the lamb, that'll turn him back. God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. You don't have to worry about Satan. Oh, he tells us to put on the whole armor of God. We'll talk about that in just a moment.

But here's the thing about, it's important that, I've got this in your lesson, it's important that when dealing with opposition to Christ and opposition to His truth and to us, that we appeal to His word. The two main elements in this being strong in the grace of God is number one, the Holy Spirit, as the spirit of an advocate, who convinces us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, who gives us eyes to see the life of Christ applied to us, and number two, listen to it, the word of God. Why do you think Paul over here in verse 15 of chapter two, he says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. our weapon in this warfare.

Well, let's go on, let's show this, verse two. And the things that thou hast heard of me, heard from me, it could be said, among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Not only do we wanna be strong in the grace of God, but we want our brothers and sisters in Christ to be strong in the grace of God. The things that Paul had taught Timothy strengthened him because Paul taught him concerning Christ crucified and risen from the dead and the word of God. And he says, you commit these to faithful men. Don't hide them under a bushel. Don't keep them to yourself. This is no secret society because we have a small group and because of our gospel.

Which basically, you know, somebody might come up to you and they say, well you all think you're the only one that's saved in time. Listen. Here's the point. Now here's how you gotta approach that. I don't know that. But, but, I know the gospel we preach here is the only gospel that God uses to save sinners. And I don't care where you are and whatever you call church or whatever, if they don't preach this gospel, listen, there's only one gospel. There's not two. There's not three shades, four shades or 50 shades. There's not a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Baptist gospel. There's one gospel and it is a perfect message.

Somebody told me one time, said, well, you think you have perfect knowledge. No, I don't. I'm all the time learning. But I've got a perfect gospel, and it never changes. And why wouldn't we say it's a perfect gospel? It's the gospel of who? The gospel of God, the gospel of Christ. God's the author of it. He didn't produce anything that's imperfect. It's the gospel of salvation, conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ. who by himself for his people fulfilled every condition that secures their salvation unto final glory. That's the gospel. And it's all by the grace of God based on his righteousness alone. Now anybody who makes salvation conditioned on sinners is preaching a false gospel. You need to understand that. That's a different gospel. And that's what most preach. Of course, Christ told us that when he was instructing the disciples in the word of the future, you know, talking about his second coming, the things leading up to it. One of the main signs, you know, people say, oh, I wanna see signs. Well, here's one of the main signs, the spread of false gospels. The spread of false Christ counterfeits. In fact, that's the biggest sign.

And he'll say, Christ said that before he comes back, the true gospel must be preached all over all the earth because God has a people, and that's what the word world means when he talks about he died for the world. He's not talking about he died for everybody without exception, but he died for his people all over this world. God has an elect people. He has sheep in every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. He's gonna save them. And how's he gonna do it? He's gonna send the spirit to get him under the gospel and bring him to faith in Christ and repentance of dead work. And his word in the hands of the spirit is the most powerful weapon that we have.

Now, we preach the gospel and it may fall on deaf ears. What does that mean? That means the spirit has not empowered it to the here's salvation yet. He made before he dies. We hope and we pray. I want to see people saved. I want to see people born again. I can't do it. I don't have that kind of strength. But God can. And he's pleased, according to 1 Corinthians 1, to use a weak vessel like me and like you to preach and witness that gospel. But the power is his. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The scripture says, well we know that that's in the power of the spirit from Christ. So give this out, Paul says, let it out. Give it to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

I've been around men who insist that you gotta hear them. And that's crazy. You gotta hear anybody whom God uses to be a mouthpiece for the gospel. It's not the preacher who saves. It's not the preacher. It's Christ. So the goal here is to spread the gospel and to see sinners saved and see the church edified.

Okay, now look at verse three. He says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Now, this is, we're gonna see the two, there's two symbols that we see in the scripture concerning the ministry of the gospel, the work of the church, and the pastors and the preachers and the evangelists. One of them is the imagery of a soldier at war. We're in a warfare. We're in a struggle. And y'all are familiar with Ephesians chapter six where he says, put on the whole armor of God. And he gives all that armor and all that's related to the gospel ministry. And we have the sword of truth, the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, our feet are shod with the preaching of the gospel and the power of the spirit, all of that. That's a beautiful analogy, but that's what we are, we're in a warfare.

But understand, according to 2 Corinthians 10, and I've got this listed in your lesson so you can read it, we won't turn there. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not physical. They're not fleshly. Now you wanna know what that tells you? You ever studied in history the Crusades? The Crusades was a travesty. It was an absolute religious lie. All of it. Because God has no way, now I'm not, people go back and they say, well what about the Old Testament when he told Israel to go over here? That's the old covenant. And that's not a covenant of salvation. In that sense, it was a covenant of survival. for his people under the old covenant, because he intended to keep them together as a nation, especially the tribe of Judah, until Christ would be born into the world. So that's what that is, that's over.

Under the covenant of grace, God has never commanded his people to pick up guns and draw swords and ride tanks and conquer other nations that way. Christ is the prince of peace. Now that doesn't mean we're supposed to be pacifist and we can't defend ourselves. That doesn't mean that at all. We can do that. But I'm talking about holy war. That's what they called the crusade. It wasn't holy, it was unholy. So understand that.

But we need to be good soldiers of Christ. And as I said, the goal here is to spread the gospel. That hardness that he spoke of, endure hardness, that's all the opposition that comes against us in the ministry of the gospel, the ministry of truth. And it takes endurance that comes from Christ alone to fight this fight, to endure the world, the flesh, and the devil. And again, understand that, that our weapons are not carnal. But our weapons are truth, the scriptures, and our battlefield is the mind. And that's how we try to reach people, through their mind.

I know somebody say, well, I'm trying to preach to their heart. Well, you can't do the work of the spirit. Only the spirit can change the heart. The mind is part of the heart. But as long as they're not born again and given a new heart, they won't hear you. So we go through the mind and look at verse four. He says, no man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Now the key word here is entangleth. All right. Ministers of the gospel, elders, preachers, and just true Christians. We have lives to live here on earth, and we're commanded by God to live those lives and concern ourselves in that. You have families, earthly families, that you to deal with, and you have jobs that you have to deal with, but don't get entangled up in them so to the point that you either compromise or ignore the ministry of the gospel and the worship of God. That's what he's saying here.

You know, soldiers even when they go to war, they have families, they have friends, they have things they have to do. There are things we have to do. You know, the Bible says that a man, like for example, a man who's capable of working but won't work and feed his family is worse than an infidel. But in doing those things that you should do, don't neglect and get so entangled with making money or getting a higher position or raising your family in this world, don't get so entangled up in them that you neglect what's eternal. That's what he's talking about.

So no man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier. Our goal in all things is to please God. And of course we know the only way we can please him is in Christ. And so don't get entangled up. I've got here, a good soldier must recognize that this world is not his home or her home. Subject to a greater and higher power, a higher king, the Lord Jesus Christ, a citizen of a greater higher kingdom. This world is not the end all and the be all.

So look at verse five, he says, and if a man also strive for masteries, yet he's not crowned except he strive lawfully. To strive for masteries literally means, as one translation is, training to compete in the games, like the Olympic games. In other words, those athletes who go to the Olympics, they train, they exercise. They go through what they need to go through in order to achieve their goal. And that's what he's saying for us as good soldiers of Christ and citizens and servants that we need to train too.

Well, how do we train? We worship God. We worship God privately. We engage in prayers privately. We worship God collectively. We have fellowship with other believers and we study the word of God like you're doing right now. Somebody told me one time, said, I never study the Word of God. Well, you may not. But if you're in church, you're studying. And if you're listening, I mean, you may not be listening. I can't tell. I think I can tell most of you. But we want to engage ourselves in the Word of God. And that's what we're doing now.

Yes, you should read and study privately, not to the neglect of the things that you're supposed to do, but all of that. But that's what he's saying, strive lawfully. In other words, don't go outside the word of God and what he commands.

Now, one thing, I've read a lot of sermons on this. They take that verse five and it's almost like they make the Christian as if he or she is in competition like the Olympics. And that's not what this is teaching. We're not in competition with one another. We shouldn't be. We're not to compete. We're to love one another. But we are to engage ourselves in these ways. And it's not teaching rewards based upon our works. That's not what it's teaching at all. The Bible talks about rewards singular in several ways, the reward of life, the reward of righteousness, all of that. But that's what Christ has earned for us, these crowns. We're not trying to work our way into God's favor or work our way into getting more. I'm not trying to work my way into getting more than you do in glory. Because if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not, the Bible says that we who are saved by his grace, and here's our strength now. We who are saved by His grace are already blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. How blessed is that? That's blessed to the max. So understand that. You start out as one who has a full, you start out with the cloak of his righteousness that'll turn away all, his blood that'll turn away all.

So it's not competition, it's not rewards based on, it's not even rewards based assurance. That comes from looking to Jesus.

Look at verse six, he says, the husbandman, now here's the second image, this is the farmer. A husbandman is a farmer that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits. And so he's talking about, he uses this in 1 Corinthians, I think it's chapter three. He talks about one comes along and he sows and another comes along and waters, things like that. What we're doing when we preach the gospel or witness the gospel, we're sowing seed. We're sowing that spora, that's what that is. Sometimes the word seed is sperma, that's talking about God's children, and sometimes the seed is spora, that's talking about the gospel. You remember the parable of the sower and the seed? and some seed fell on good ground and then it sprung up unto life. The rest of them fell on deaf ears. So this, it's really an Old Testament reference, but he says, we sow the seed of the word and we nurtured the field of believers and are worthy of that support. So he says in verse, he says, the husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits. Those who labor in the ministry are worthy of the fruits. You remember the old analogy of the ox, let him eat some of the corn as he goes by, all of that.

So in verse seven, he says, consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding in all things. Now who gives the understanding? You say, well, I've got a high IQ. Well, I'm glad you do, but that's not going to give you this understanding. So he said, I'm an engineer. I can figure out how to build a machine. I'm glad you can, and those machines sure help us, but that's not going to give you this understanding.

Where does this understanding come from? It comes from God. It comes from God in Christ. I think about over here in 1 John 5. Let me leave you with this.

1 John 5 verse 20. It says, and we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true and we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. Okay.