Second Timothy chapter 1 verse
8 through 10. Paul writes in verse 8, he says,
be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord,
nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. Paul is saying
to Timothy that there's a cost in this world in following the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's a cost in following him,
and the cost is afflictions. He's saying you will be afflicted,
and these afflictions are known and called, known as and called
the afflictions of the gospel. The afflictions of the gospel. And the way that we bear these
afflictions is according to the power of God. That's how we're
going to bear these afflictions. These afflictions, what is, what
are the afflictions? The afflictions are anything
that kills this flesh. that weakens this flesh, that
loosens the grip of this flesh on its hold on the world for
love's sake, for looking to the world, for loving the world.
The Lord gives us afflictions to weaken this flesh, to strike
at the confidence that we have in this flesh, so that as Paul
said, we have no confidence in the flesh. But we're given every
confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so afflictions kill
this flesh. They tear this flesh down. They
put this flesh in its place. Our face in the dirt, on the
ground, where we are humbled before our Lord, our God, and
our Savior, these afflictions. And the way we bear these afflictions
is according to the power of God. And what I mean by that
is that it's the power of God that enables us to bear these
afflictions. We don't call down the power
of God. We can't make it effectual and feel its power when we will.
We need God's grace. to give us that power. We need
Him to be gracious to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need Him
to arise for us in grace not according to our works Because
if he does it according to our works, we shall come short of
the glory of God. Because we're all sinners. We're
all sinners. And so it's by the power of God
that enables a sinner saved to bear these gospel afflictions
that weaken the flesh, that tear the flesh down, that put us to
death in the flesh. Because when I'm weak, Paul said,
that's when I'm strong. That's when I'm going to know
the grace and the power of my God. When I'm weak in myself,
when I'm weak. Now, our Lord said in Luke 9,
and let's turn there, Luke chapter 9. And we're going to pick up in verse
23. Paul says, Luke 9, 23, our Lord
speaking, said to them all, if any man will come after me, let
him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. He's talking about dying to self
and living to Christ by bearing up under these gospel afflictions. There's gonna be gospel afflictions.
Don't set your hand to the plow and then look back and turn back.
Don't do that. Bear the afflictions. For whosoever
will save his life, whosoever will spare himself, do his best
to spare himself from these gospel afflictions, he said, you shall
lose it. But whosoever will lose his life
for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged
if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed,
ashamed of me and of my words, That means he's saying whoever
will be ashamed of trusting the righteousness of Christ alone.
Remember, Paul suffered for the sake of the cross. He preached
Christ crucified and suffered persecution for that because
what he was saying is Christ is all my righteousness. Christ
is all the righteousness of his people. you that are trusting
in the law for righteousness, you that are working for righteousness,
you that would justify yourselves before God by your works and
what you've done, and despising Christ, he's saying, you despise
me because I preach Christ and I'm standing on the righteousness
of Christ. I'm declaring to you, he's all our righteousness, is
what Paul said, plainly declaring the righteousness of Christ.
And when you declare the righteousness of Christ, you sound like you're
promoting sin and the flesh and nothing could be further from
the truth. We're promoting and declaring the grace of God to
save sinners. That we need his grace because
we are sinners and we need his grace. And so he said, whosoever
shall be ashamed of me and of my words, that Christ is our
righteousness. Of him shall the son of man be
ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's
and of the holy angels. Now, how are we gonna die to
self? How are we gonna die to self and how are we going to
live to Christ so that we bear these gospel afflictions and
that when the Lord lays us low through trials, through the manifold
temptations that he brings in strengthening his people, how
are we gonna bear up under that? How are we gonna see the hand
of our God and believe and trust him that he's in this, he's doing
this work? Well, Paul tells us we do so
according to the power of God. That's the only way we can do
it. That is the only way we can do it in spirit and in truth. Now, and that means that we need
the grace of God to work mightily in us, always, so that our faithful
walk in the service of Christ, where we bear these gospel afflictions,
is according to the power of God and not according to the
strength of our own flesh and our wisdom. And it's God's grace
that separates, that shows us our need of Him and teaches us
his work, his way, his spirit, and to turn from the flesh, to
turn from the works of the flesh to do these things. Now, the
testimony, the testimony, we looked at being not being ashamed,
and that we need the grace of God to bear these afflictions.
We looked at the afflictions. Now, let's look at this testimony
of our Lord. The testimony of our Lord is
the telling of the good news of salvation. That's the testimony. God has revealed to us salvation
in His Son, and we declare this testimony of God. We preach the
gospel. We declare the gospel. We proclaim
the gospel. We don't beg men to believe on
Jesus or to give their heart to Jesus. We preach, declare,
proclaim, bear the testimony of our God and what He has accomplished
for sinners. And He does the saving. He turns
the heart of the sinner. and gives that sinner faith to
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the testimony of our Lord
is this gospel, and by this gospel, the power of God is witnessed
in the hearts of His people. In the preaching of this gospel,
declaring what Christ has accomplished for His people, the power of
God is witnessed. in the hearts of sinners, delivering
them from the bondage of sin, the bondage of this body of sin,
and delivering us from this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of Christ, our light, our life. Listen to what Paul said in 1
Corinthians 1, verse 18, for the preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness. You're declaring the righteousness
of another man? Jesus Christ who died on the
cross, that's foolishness they say, but unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. Our God has caused us to hear
this gospel of what Christ has accomplished according to power,
his power, his grace, and he's made it effectual in our hearts. Many hear, but few are chosen. Many hear, but don't hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches. But God makes it effectual in
the hearts of His people. He takes that testimony and makes
it effectual in your hearts. Everything a sinner needs is
declared in this testimony of the Lord. All you need is declared
in Christ crucified. You don't need to go to other
religions And other... spiritual things, as people would
call them, and look for other things. Everything that you need
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the testimony of our Lord
Jesus Christ and what he did to save sinners from their sins,
meaning he's delivered us from the wrath of God that was against
us justly for what we had done in this flesh. And not only that,
but he gives us life by himself. He gives us life and light and
all the gifts that He chooses to give us, all the blessings
of God are given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. God never
blesses His people outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. He blesses
His people in Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. every blessing
of God is given to his people in Christ and in Christ alone.
And so Paul says to Timothy verse 8, Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. Lean on the Lord. Trust the Lord. As you're going through the afflictions,
you're not going to understand it. You're not going to reconcile
it in the flesh. It's not going to be according
to your wisdom. Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. He'll bear you
up. He'll carry you through. He'll
provide for you, and you'll see more and more beautifully Jesus
Christ and what He's done for you. And He'll grow you in that,
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so he's saying, bear that,
Timothy, that which comes as a result of bearing witness of
this testimony, you bear the afflictions, trusting the Lord,
trusting the Lord in it. So this testimony of our Lord
reveals the salvation of God and His Son. Paul confirmed this
in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6 when he said, for God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, he's talking about God our creator
who created this world and all that we see out of nothing, ex
nihilo, out of nothing, hath shined in our hearts, that is
he's created us anew, made us new creatures, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. How are you going to know God?
How am I going to know God? How are we going to know the
true and living God? In the face of Jesus Christ.
We're going to know the true and living God looking to Christ,
hearing Him, what He has done and accomplished for us. That's
how we're gonna see and see the hand of our God, the wisdom of
our God, the mind of our God, the will of our God, the purpose
of our God in creating us, in creating this world and the heavens
is in the face of Christ. That's how we're gonna know the
Father. That's how we're gonna know Him and have fellowship
with God in light, in life, without sin and without darkness, in
Christ. in Christ, and it's through that
glorious work of His redemption. And the testimony of our Lord
reveals this glorious work of redemption. Listen to what Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 and 2. He said, And I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. He's saying,
when you saw me and you heard me speak, I was weak and trembling
among you. I really didn't do a great job,
is what he's saying. It was pretty pitiful, pretty
pitiful. And yet you believed. You witnessed
me in the weakness of the flesh, and yet you believed as a testimony
of the Lord's power. That it's not by my fancy speech.
It's not by my silver tongue or golden tongue or whatever.
It's not by anything in me. It's all according to the grace
of God that does it, that works this salvation in your heart,
that takes this testimony and makes it effectual to you so
that you believe. You believe. He says, for I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You saw me a weakness, and I
preached Christ crucified. I declared Him." And you heard
it, and you believed, so that you didn't believe the logic,
you didn't trust in human reason and wisdom. You heard the voice
of God in His testimony, what He declares in His Word, and
you believed Him. You obeyed the gospel. That is
the voice of your God. That's the power of God because
this flesh doesn't believe God. This flesh runs from God like
Adam and Eve did when they heard the voice walking in the cool
of the garden after they sinned, they fled from Christ. They hid
themselves. That's what this flesh does.
So you that hear and are drawn to Christ, that's the grace of
God. That's the spirit of God doing
that work in you, making this effectual into your hearts. This
word of the cross is unto the Jews, he said, a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolishness. This, the preaching of the cross,
it reveals, it makes known, it manifests the will of God. for
sinful people in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the preaching of
this gospel reveals, manifests, makes known who are his people,
because they hear and they believe. So through the preaching of the
gospel, that's why we preach it, because God manifests through
the preaching of the gospel them that are his, because they hear
And they believe. They rejoice in Christ. They rejoice in Him. That's God
making it known. I'll show you this in Romans
chapter 1. Romans 1. Paul is saying very much the
same thing here to the Romans. Romans 1 verse 16 and 17. He's
saying the same thing that he was telling Timothy there in
2 Timothy. He never moved from this declaration,
did he? Because Romans is an early letter.
2 Timothy is one of his last, if not the last. And he said,
verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, that testimony
of our Lord, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. So what he's saying
there is you didn't make the power of God effectual to you
because you believed. God made his word effectual to
you so that you believed. Faith unto faith was revealed
so that we see God's work in the just living by faith, believing
God. It's a witness to God's power.
Now, let's go back to 2 Timothy 1. And let's read these next two
verses, nine and 10, and understand here, these verses are giving
us a good understanding of what Christ accomplished in his redemption. So again, that testimony is declaring
the redemption of Jesus Christ for his people, the purchase
of his people with his own blood. So verses nine and 10. Who hath
saved us? and called us within holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel. So first of all,
by the redemption of Jesus Christ, this testimony, the gospel is
telling us that Christ hath saved us. And that's important there. It's declaring what's been done.
Salvation has already taken place in and by the Lord Jesus Christ
for his people. We are declaring an accomplished
salvation. It's already accomplished for
the people of God. There's nothing yet undone that
we need to do. Christ is working it. He's manifesting
it. He's rolling it out in your hearts. He's declaring to you what has
already taken place. And He's taking you out of darkness,
bringing you into the light of what He's done. giving you a
knowledge and understanding of what Christ has accomplished
for you by his death on the cross. And so he's making known to us
that this was the father's objective in sending his son into the world.
to save his people from their sins. This was the father's objective
when he chose a people in Christ before the foundation of the
world. So that he chose whom he loved his people and chose
whom he would in the Lord Jesus Christ, committing us to the
care of our mediator, our sovereign, our God, our husband, our all,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He put everything into the hand
of the Son to glorify the Son and to save his people from their
sins. It's all committed, all committed
to Christ. This is what we hear in John
3, 16 and verse 17. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved. And so we see this is why the
Father sent His Son. because his people, he scattered
them throughout the world. And he said to Nicodemus, a Jew,
it's not just for the Jews, Nicodemus. My people are among the Gentiles
scattered throughout the world so that Christ is the Savior
of the world in that sense, not every individual, but of those
whom the Father hath given to him, whether they are Jew or
Gentile. Our God, our Father, sent His
Son into the world for this purpose, to save His people from their
sins. Now, saving us was one of Christ's primary objectives. One being the glory of His Father
who sent Him, the other being to save His people. to redeem
his people, to purchase them, to deliver us out of that body
of sin with the inheritance of death and hell in that body of
Adam, according to SC, to take us out of that body of sin and
bring us into the body of Christ, where we enjoy the inheritance
of our head, the Lord Jesus Christ. We now stand complete in Him. John 6, 37 and 38, Our Lord said,
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And so everything we read that
Christ's redemption accomplished comes under this umbrella that
Christ hath saved us. So everything that we read following
in these verses, nine and 10 here, it's all contained underneath
this glorious declaration that Christ hath saved us. It's accomplished. It's done. Therefore, because our Lord hath
saved us, it pleased the Lord to call us. It pleased him to
call us by his grace and bring us into a knowledge and understanding
of what Christ has already accomplished for us through his redemption
on that cross. He's called us to hear, to know
what he has done. So first of all, what I'm saying
here is God didn't leave us in the dark. He could have saved
us and just left us ignorant of these things, but no, it pleases
Him to glorify the Son in our hearts and in our minds to know
that this work has been done by Christ. It's done, it's accomplished. Turn over, excuse me, to Titus
3. Titus chapter 3, and let's go
to verse 4 through 6. Titus 3. He says there, but after that
the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared.
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Savior." See, he's making this known to us. He's
not leaving us in the dark. It pleases Him for you to know
that you have been saved, been brought out, delivered from death,
purchased by the blood of Christ. And to do this, He gives us a
new life in Christ. He makes us new creatures. We're
not saved, we're not perfected, we're not improved, we don't
sanctify ourselves, we don't do any improving on what Christ
has done by our works. It's all by the work, all by
the blood, all by the faithfulness, the faith of Jesus Christ that
we are saved. Now he tells us that God hath
called us within holy calling. What does that mean? That God
hath called us within holy calling. What does it mean? Well, one
thing, we're told in 1 Thessalonians 4, 7, that God hath not called
us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. Unto holiness. So in one sense, we are given
to understand that as Christ delivered us from our sins, their
dominion and the punishment of those things and the fear of
that, he's delivered us from that. And we're given to understand
that because Christ has put away our sins. And I don't have any
fear of that judgment anymore. He delivers us from that. We're
not working and laboring and striving and spending to bring
that debt down. Christ has paid the debt off.
There's no debt left for the people of God. But we're made
to know that. That doesn't mean that we just
go out sinning and doing whatever we want according to the lusts
of the flesh. He makes us to know that. Paul said, Brethren,
ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another. And so we're not
called, we're not saved to live in sin and just do as this flesh
pleases, but rather to believe the Lord and walk in love and
in faith. But there is a deeper meaning
still in what is said about this holy calling here. He said, God
has called us within holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace. And what he's saying
there is God has called us into a knowledge of what Christ has
done. And to know that it's not because we have done something. We didn't make a decision for
God. Turn our heart our lives around for God. We didn't do
anything to earn the favor of God It's all by the grace of
God that we are saved if it was if it required us to do something
That would be us putting our hand to the work and polluting
it and defiling that work and Corrupting that work. So this
is a holy calling it rests entirely on the shoulders of Christ and
It doesn't come down to you and me. It rests entirely on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Anything that God purposes for
us to do in this grace is going to be worked in us by His power,
by His Spirit, to the glory and praise of His name and not to
my praise. not because I've done something,
but because Christ has done it. He's obtained our eternal redemption,
so everything required of me is found and given and provided
for by my surety, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, put that on
me. Put that on my account. I've
paid it all. They're mine. They're mine. I've
paid the whole thing with my blood. They're my purchased possession. And so He gives us all that we
need in Him. It's in holy calling. It's not
because you turned it around. If you turn anything around,
it's to the glory and praise of Him. It's Him doing that work
in you according as it pleases Him to work in you. And so we don't pollute it with
what we do. The Lord doesn't say to us, if
you don't do this, then I can't do that. No, it rests entirely
on our God, on our Savior. If anything rested on me, I can
tell you right now, I'd be going to hell. If something rested
on me, if something rests on you, if you think that it rests
on you, that you can do something, it won't be long before the Lord,
if you're the Lord, He's gonna shame you and put your face in
the dirt and show you that we can do nothing, that there's
no wicked sin that we're not capable of. We always need His
grace, always need His grace. We are much weaker than we think
we are. And corrupt, sinful, dead in
trespasses and sins, there's not a glimmer of life in us apart
from Christ. It's all of Christ. It's all
of Christ. We're dead in trespasses and
sins by nature. And he pictures this in the law,
doesn't he? He said in Exodus 20, verse 25,
regarding the use of a stone altar, when you make a stone
altar, he said, if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou
shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up a tool upon
it, thou hast polluted it. Does God have a problem with
hammers and chisels? No, not at all. He's just saying,
don't add your work to it. You're not gonna beautify that
work which my son has done. You're not gonna improve upon
him. Give him all the glory and the praise. Walk in faith, walk
in love. Seek to help others and to be
kind to others and to bear those fruits of the spirit rather than
the works of the flesh. By all means do that, but that's
not your justification or your sanctification. It's all of Christ
who does that in his people. So Christ hath saved us by the
sacrifice of himself unto his father to atone for the sins
of his people. For God hath made Christ to be
sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. It's all in him. The father accepted
the sacrifice of his son so that our sins are put away and we
are justified by God. and we are sanctified by Christ
our Savior, justified and sanctified by Him. It's done apart from
our sinful works. It rests entirely on Christ. In Christ, therefore, God hath
called us within holy calling not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began." And he tells us this,
and I tell you this, as the Lord shows and declares it in his
word, I tell you this because it makes known to you the will
and purpose of God, that you be holy because God is holy. not to look to yourselves, but
to look to Christ and keep looking to the Lord Jesus Christ because
He is our holiness. And in Him, we are brought to
the Father. As our Lord said, behold, I and
the children whom thou has given me. He does not fail. When you
look to your hand, to your works and what you do, and that's taking
your eyes off of Christ. And that's not holiness, that's
the flesh. That's looking to make your own
righteousness. So we come in Christ. Now, 2
Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14 says, but we are bound to give thanks
all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you. to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth. He gave you that. He gives
you the spirit, which sanctifies you. He gives you to hear, to
receive that word so that you believe the truth. Where unto? He called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. He did
it so that you and I will not come short of that glory of Christ. it's all in his hand praise be
to the glory of our God and Savior who did not leave us to do anything
but did it all in Christ did it all so that now what we do
is all in his grace and by his power to the praise and honor
of his name now verse 10 in our text but is now but is now made
manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who
hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. So this is, again, speaking to
the power of your God to transform his people, to conform us to
the image of his darling son, Jesus Christ. We're looking to
him to do it all, because when we look to ourselves, we see
darkness, we see sin, we see weakness, We see corruption,
we see fear, we see terror, we see corrupted things in ourselves. So we look to Him by His grace,
we look to Him and keep looking to Him who is the light of the
world. He says in Christ Jesus, Paul
says in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything
nor uncircumcision but a new creature. Our God has done this
for us in grace in Christ. We don't transform ourselves
or make ourselves new creatures by our works, by our decision,
by what we do. It's all of his grace. Our Lord
said to Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit. All right, if God was waiting
to save you till you made a decision for him, that would mean that
that decision came from your flesh. And that which is born
of the flesh is flesh. We're born again by the Spirit
of God. Then we hear. Then we believe. Then we confess and cry out,
Lord, have mercy on me. Save me, Lord. Save me. Like God said to Moses, so then
it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. It's God who does it. And so,
brethren, this is the redemption of our Lord which hath saved
us. Everything necessary, everything required has been done for us
by Christ. And he manifests this. He manifests
faith. He gives us a belief in the heart
and a confession with the mouth, but it's all of his gracious
spirit being given to us and his power delivering us from
death and darkness. Otherwise, we'd never come. or
we'd come in the flesh and it would fall apart and come to
nothing. But it's by His grace. So let me just close. We'll read
these verses 8 through 10 and just close. Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God, who hath saved
us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began, before we did any
good or evil. but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death
and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Amen.