Back in verse nine of 2 Timothy
4, do thy diligence to come shortly
unto me. Paul needed Timothy. Get here as quick as you can. Others have left me. Some have opposed me. You come to me quickly. Paul needed Timothy. God made it that way. We need each other. God made it that way. Now there's a very true sense
in which we only need the Lord. We know that. Look at verses 16 and 17. He
said, nobody at my first, at first there was nobody with
me, but the Lord stood with me. And we know we only need him
in that sense. There's also a sense in which
we can do without any particular person if we have to. Look at
verse 10. Demons hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. There are Demases in every local
church. There are others, though, like
Timothy, that are needful by God's design. But in the context of that, knowing
that the Lord is the one thing needful, but understand what Paul is saying
here. Do thy diligence to come shortly
unto me. I'm forsaken. I'm greatly withstood. Timothy, get here as quick as
you can. Timothy was Paul's son in the
faith. And these are Paul's last words
on this earth. Come to me. When you're about done, you want
those you love to be with you. What do we need each other for? Did the paralyzed man need the
men that carried him on his bed? To the Lord Jesus Christ, who forgave his sins on the spot. Did Moses need those who held
up his arms so that the battle was won? When the Lord sent the
disciples out two by two, did they need each other? If not,
why did the Lord do it that way? Again, don't misunderstand me.
The Lord could have accomplished all of that and everything he
accomplishes without those that he used. But my point is that
he didn't do that. Don't despise the means that
God uses to save, to heal, to bless, to encourage, to lift
up, to just be there. Let me ask you a question this
morning. If the Lord sent us out two by two and you could
choose, who would you take with you? Thank God for that friend. Thank
God for that person. Thank God for them. Look at verse 10. For Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed
unto Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus is in Dalmatia now. And
it may be that Crescens and Titus just had business in these other
cities and were just away for a while. That may be the case.
We don't know why they left. It doesn't say that they forsook. They just happen to be in other
places, but Demas forsook Paul. That means to abandon, to leave
helpless. To abandon. Having loved this present world. Why is that important that we
know that? Why did Paul say that? What difference
does it make why he left? Because it's a warning to us.
That's exactly why. This world now will keep you
from worshiping the Lord and you'll justify it. You'll think
it's perfectly reasonable. You'll say you're gonna use it
for the Lord and you may even do that. And that's a wonderful
thing as long as you're not taken away by it. The believer's place in this
world is not complicated. Solomon's conclusion of the whole
matter in the book of Ecclesiastes was that you honor God in all
of it. He did everything. He tried everything. He pursued everything. He examined
everything. He analyzed everything. And he
said, here's the conclusion of all of it. Honor God. Do what
he says. Look to Christ. And as for loving this present
world, you can take this to the bank. It don't love you. Not the love you need. It'll chew you up and spit you
out now. Turn to Matthew chapter 27. Verse one, when the morning was
come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel
against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him,
they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.
Then Judas, which had betrayed him when he saw that he was condemned,
repented himself and brought again the 30 pieces of silver
to the chief priests and elders. the ones that gave him the 30
pieces of silver. He returned it to them saying,
I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.
And they said, what is that to us? There's the world for you. They
want you to dishonor the Lord. And they'll do it right along
with you. They want you to engage in things
that are vain and empty and evil. and they'll do it right along
with you. But don't expect any love. Don't expect any compassion
from the goddess. What is that to us? See thou
to that. And he cast down the pieces of
silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. Back in our text, verse 11, Only Luke is with me. Take Mark
and bring him with you, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Now many speak of this being
John Mark, one who at one time was not considered profitable,
and yet now was considered profitable. And that very well may be the
case. That may well mean John Mark,
and that may well happen. The Lord is gracious to change
hearts, to make people useful that in and of themselves are
worthless. We're all in and of ourselves
worthless. If he can make me, if he can use me, he can use
anybody. And that's a good point in this,
but I want you to notice another phrase. I want you to notice
one phrase in that verse. This is a unique and very necessary
verse. He's profitable to me for the
ministry, for the ministry. Your pastor needs you. Maybe not like you think. And
I want you to think about what over 18 years now, 2004, we moved
here in January of 2004, 18 years ago, each one of you individually
think, what have I asked you to do? Have I asked you to do
anything? And I sought for you to be profitable
to me in the ministry of Christ in this place. And I wanna make something clear
before we talk about that. A lot of things are done, and
understand, I don't want y'all thinking, what is he referring
to here? Look, I've been in a lot of churches
and a lot of places and I've talked to all the pastors. I
know a lot of things that happen and a lot of things that don't
happen. And the reasons why and all the mundane details of it,
I know a lot of it. And I don't wanna be any more
specific than I need to be, but we need to understand what this
means. Profitable for the ministry. There have been a lot of things
done in churches over the years that nobody asked anybody to
do, and many of them should never have been done. Maybe things have been done with
regard to the church with good intentions and maybe not, but
they've actually been destructive and divisive and should never
have been done. If you wanna be profitable, and
I say this to anybody that hears this, I say this, if the Lord
may not let me preach another time, this may be the last time
I ever preach, I say this for everybody that comes after me,
that ever preaches the gospel. If you wanna be profitable to
your pastor for the ministry, just do what he asks you to do. For better or for worse, God
has put a pastor over his flock. And I hope I say this with humility
and all desire for the Lord's honor alone. If you want to be
a help to me, just do what I ask. And in a way it's not much, and
in a way it's a lot. I've asked every one of y'all
to do things for me. And you're sitting there thinking,
well, you never has asked me to do anything. Oh, yes, I have. Important things, vital things,
things that have to happen if there's gonna be a church here.
And look, I'll tell you how this ain't gonna happen. It ain't
gonna happen by me being bossy and getting mad when things don't
turn out and standing up here and complaining about this didn't
happen. It ain't gonna happen that way. If you don't care about
me, and by God's grace what I do, then we just won't have a church.
Because I can't be the other way. I can't be that way. And it should never be that way. We've got to care for one another,
all of us. And we've got to have a desire
by God's grace to be profitable for the ministry. And I don't mean, and people
are gonna say, well, there's a gum wrapper on the ground.
Chris didn't say I could pick that up, so I'm just gonna leave
it laying there. Let's not be children. You know what I'm talking about. A lot of times, things do happen,
and I just see it happen and let it happen, because it's the
right thing. It just needs to happen. I don't necessarily have
to say everything, but I want to read to you Psalm 84.10. In
fact, let's turn over there together. Psalm 8410. I want us to try to understand from
the scriptures what this is. That was such a blessing to Paul
that he mentions it here at the end of his life. And specifically
asks for somebody. Because they were a great help
to him. Psalm 8410. Think about this. when you do anything with regard
to the ministry, to the church, not just this building, but those
that are here, each other, me, you, all of us, think about your
involvement. And let me say this too, religion,
we'll talk a little bit about how religion talks about that
kind of thing and how everybody's gotta be some, you know, One
of the worst banes to a pastor is somebody that wants to be
active in the church. Don't think of it like that. But listen to this. A day in
thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper
in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and
shield. Because of who he is, I would
rather pick up gum wrappers out of the pews. I would rather clean
the toilets in this place. I'd rather dust Probably my least
favorite. No, you can't say that. How can
anybody even know what your least favorite thing is? But I'd rather
do the most menial, unnoticed, priceless, humiliating even thing in the
house of God. than to dwell with the luxuries
of those who hate God in this world. And it's because of who he is.
He's a son. He's bright. And he's my shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. If you work for a man, he might
give you a paycheck, but only the Lord can give grace
and glory. And nothing compares to that. And by the way, that's the Lord
giving you the paycheck too. No good thing will he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. Oh, Lord of hosts. Think about this verse now. When
anything presents itself to you that needs to be done with regard
to the ministry, profitable for the ministry, blessed is the
man that trusteth in thee. I ask each and every one of you,
I have many times to pray for me. Is there anything more important
than that? Can there be anything more humbling and wonderful to me than to know?
And as I've said to you so many times, religion talks about having
an attitude of prayer. I don't even know what that is,
but I'll tell you this. I need you to specifically get
on your knees, roll over on your face in your bed, Fall down before
God in your heart and ask Him to be gracious to me. Ask Him
to give me grace, to preach Christ in such a way
that His glory shine forth in the message, that you might see
Him and not me, that you might glory in Him alone. Paul said,
I came not with excellency that the glory may be of him and not
of me. Pray that I would have boldness
to speak the gospel. Pray that I would never ever
compromise the person of Christ and his power to save and in
his grace and love for his elect. Pray for me often. Pray for one another. Pray continually. And for many of you, that's all
I ask of you. For many that are members here
and a member here, just somebody that shows up. We don't have
a role. If you come worship, then you're
a member of this church. But that may be all I ever ask
of you, pray for me. You know how much I need it. I ask the men to read scripture
before I preach and to take that seriously, and they do, and I
thank God for that. That's worship. I ask those who
are able to sing to take that seriously, and we're gonna have
a meeting about that soon. We're gonna reevaluate. And I
think there might be some hidden talent that we might have to
take advantage of, throwing that out there. But no, it'll be whoever
wants to come and talk about it. But I ask, and again, this is something
that just happened and somebody organized it, but to clean this,
sure, the building needs to be cleaned. How many times have
I said how much a lot has to happen for this to happen? Profitable for the ministry. I guess at one time, a long time
ago, I asked Linda to play the piano for us and I've never known
a better piano player for the worship of the Lord ever. You
would not believe how much grief that I've had with piano players
over the years. I've been in religion a long
time, y'all, a long time. She does a beautiful job, and
Donna plays when Linda's not able to, and she does a wonderful
job. At conference time, I ask some
of you to do specific things, and you do so good. And it's
all just simple, isn't it? It's simple, but it's got to
happen. Some of you keep people that
are visiting in your home and things like that. But let me
just say this about that before we move on to the next verse.
One of the biggest things that I ask, and don't take this the wrong
way, as I'm talking to myself and you, one of the biggest things
is just don't be an idiot. You know why that's important?
Because we're idiots. If we can possibly mess this
thing up, we will. Don't be petty, don't be selfish,
don't be bossy, don't be self-important. Let's just make it simple. Instead
of specifically pointing out all of that, let's just say it
this way, be helpful. when you're asked, when you're
needed, just to be an encouragement to somebody, just to forgive
somebody. This is not complicated stuff.
This is not a business. This is not an organization.
This is just people loving one another. And again, if you don't love
me and care about me and what we do here, then we're not gonna
have a church. It's not gonna happen because I lay down the
law and crack the whip. It's not gonna happen that way.
It's gonna happen because you give a hoot. Or it's not going to. Be encouraging and forgiving.
Be profitable to me, but to one another for the ministry. For
the ministry, it's for the ministry. It's not for me. It's for me for the ministry
and for one another. And may God make it so. I need that so much. I need that
every time. And every day when we're not
together, I need that. Verse 12 is a very interesting
verse. Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. Very interesting. John Gill,
one of the commentators that I read quite a bit because he's
just so thorough. I don't always think he was right
about everything, but he was so thorough about commenting
on every verse. So I look at it quite a bit,
but he said that Timothy was the minister at Ephesus. at the
time and that Paul sent Tychicus there so that when Timothy came
to Paul, the folks at Ephesus would not be without a pastor,
the leadership that they needed. And I know this from experience
and from the scripture. God's sheep cannot long continue
without an under shepherd. It just can't, it can't. That scripture right there, you
might think, well, that's kind of, let's just pass over that. Paul
made provision to make sure that those folks in Ephesus were taught
and led. You just don't leave sheep to
do what they do. That's me, that's you, that's
anybody. God has ordained it this way
and it's important. And I say this to people that
I know and care about and want the best for. If you've been
waiting on a pastor for years, maybe you need to go find one. Not wait on one. If it's been that long, go find
one. If you think your home or your
job or even your family are more important, you're wrong about
that. Pastors often leave all of that
in order to pastor a church, but people can't leave all of
that to go and sit under a pastor. Where the gospels preached, what's
important to you? Paul made sure those people were
not left without that leadership, without that pastor. Verse 13. The cloak that I left at Troas
with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books,
but especially The Lord uses many and diverse things to bring
to pass the furtherance of his ministry, the saving of his people
by the gospel preached, books that Paul liked to read, even
a cloak for the coming winter. It says in verse 21, winter is
coming, do thy diligence to come with that cloak before winter.
And the parchments may well have been the Old Testament scriptures
or at least portions of them that Paul needed to study. But
thank God for all of his provisions in the ministry. Those are needful,
everything, all of it. And God's church is always, and
what I ought to be doing is standing up here bragging on y'all about
all of this, but then you'd start getting overconfident and thinking
too much of yourselves, and then that wouldn't be good. But y'all
are examples in these things. You really are. And I thank the
Lord for that, for providing things like that. You bring me
everything I need. And I'm thankful for that. Verse
14. Alexander the coppersmith did
me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works. It
seems like there's always somebody, not all the time, thank the Lord,
it's not all the time, but just about everywhere. But the Lord
uses people like this and things, certain things, sometimes situations
to be a thorn in our flesh. He just does. Paul called it
one time, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. And that word buffet
means to punch with your fist. I have a crude way of saying
what happened that I won't say. that Paul took a beating, he
took a whooping from Satan. But remember this, Paul said the Lord gave him that
messenger of Satan to beat on him, to beat on him. Alexander the coppersmith was
such God's seas are not always smooth seas, but he's always
the captain. Verse 15, we see a little name called in there in
14, Alexander the coppersmith. He said, now you be aware of
him also. He hath greatly withstood our words. He's a problem. And there's nothing wrong whatsoever
with specifically warning of specific individuals. I've done
that at times, and it's too important to be nice about it. It's too
important. But verse 16, look at that. And
at my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook
me. I pray God that it may not be
laid to their charge. Paul had a kind heart for those
who forsook him for one reason or another. And notice that the
harsh language, the Lord reward him for his works, according
to his works, that harsh language was for one who withstood the
gospel greatly. Not just somebody that left,
but for somebody that greatly withstood the truth of God. Whether for personal reasons,
and often it's personal reasons. When somebody starts having a
problem with the message and withstanding your words, it has nothing to do with that.
It's just, it's something personal, and it is made into a gospel
issue. Again, I haven't just experienced
what I experienced. I've experienced what 15 other
men have experienced too, just from talking to them. And that's
often the case. It's just some little personal
thing that gets, that all of a sudden they're hearing things,
you know, that they don't think are the truth. And they start
slandering the preacher over something stupid. But whether it's that or deliberate
heresy, you don't blaspheme God. That's clear here. Paul had kind
words for those who just, for whatever reason, went away. But not when the gospel's greatly
withstood. Here's one lesson from that.
If you and I ever have a personal problem of some kind, let's leave
God out of it. Can we do that? When it becomes a withstanding
of the gospel, it's a whole nother thing. But it rarely happens that way. Notice that forsaking the gospel
is one thing, and forsaking God's preacher is another thing. You see that in the text? Forsaking God's preacher is not
an indifferent thing. There are many who bounce around
to different churches and don't ever really support anything
or anybody, and you're not blameless in that. Well, I didn't leave
the gospel, I just left you. I just left your church. Well,
yeah, and then you left somebody else two years ago. And then
another year before that, you left somebody else. Verse 17, we'll be through. Notwithstanding,
the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching
might be fully known. You see what it is? The ministry,
profitable for the ministry. That the preaching might be fully
known and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered,
the Lord delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, just as
surely as he did Daniel. a different line. I believe he's
talking about Satan there, or maybe not. I don't know, but
he delivered me from destruction. The Lord saved me. And he said in verse 18, he's
always going to. And that's the final thought
this morning. Think about this with me now.
The Lord stood with me, he strengthened me. Have you ever looked back
on something that happened 10 years ago and you think, that
was horrible. How did I even survive that?
That's the most horrible thing. But I don't remember it being
so horrible at the time. You know why? Because the Lord
stood with you and strengthened you and saved you from being
destroyed. That's why. But you look back
on it later and you're like, at the time he gave you grace
and it just was what it was, you know, it was just, it was
fine. It was just another thing that
you went through But the Lord gave you grace. And then later, he gives you
a different perspective on it, and you realize what grace, how
gracious he is. And Paul, it seems, had begun
to learn the lesson that we all need to learn. Look at verse
18. Oh, may we learn this, the Lord's
gonna deliver me every time. He's gonna deliver me every time.
He's gonna preserve me into his heavenly kingdom. And oh, may
I glorify him. May we all glorify him forever
and ever for that. Instead of complaining, and think
about this now, I don't wanna be the person that the Lord has
saved for 58 years. He has saved me for 58 years,
and longer than that, in eternity, from the foundation of the world,
He has saved me, and every year of my life, He's saved me, and
then some little something happens, and I say, what am I gonna do?
What am I gonna do? Do you wanna be that person? I'll tell you what you're gonna
do when something comes up. You're gonna do what you've always
done. If you're his, you're gonna stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. God, give us grace to trust you. To trust you. What in the world
is gonna happen? How are we gonna do that? How
are we gonna get through that? The Lord's gonna save me again. All the way to glory. That's
what Paul said. God, give us grace to trust you.