2nd Timothy chapter 1, and we're going to
read from verse 7. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 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, 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. but is now made manifest by the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death
and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Amen. May the Lord bless that
short reading to us from his word. Let's have a wee word of
prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee
for this opportunity of coming and gathering around Thy Word.
We thank Thee that it is a living Word. We thank Thee that it is
powerful like a two-edged sword. And we pray that Thou wilt speak
to us this day from those things that are written and that which
is said. And we pray that as we wait upon
thee, that we might be humbled and encouraged, that we might
be blessed and nourished, that we might be given a sense of
joy and peace, and we might know that we have an interest in the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ and all the blessedness that
flows through thee to thy people and thy body, the church. For
Jesus' sake we ask it, amen. And the Apostle Paul, allow me
the opportunity to take my jacket off because I think the sun is
starting to come around to my direction as well. No, we're
good. Is it here? Is that what it is? Oh, that is so much better. Thank you. Thank you. When the apostle Paul wrote his
second epistle to Timothy, Timothy was a friend and a fellow preacher. The old apostle Paul was in prison
in Rome and he was soon to be executed, soon to be executed
for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. There have been times when to
be a preacher and follower of Jesus Christ has carried a great
price. And we are blessed to enjoy the
liberty that we have today, liberty to meet together freely. Liberty to own public buildings
in which we can meet and where we can speak freely of the things
that the Lord has done for us and witness to the people around
about. We have a great privilege in
being able to publicly profess the gospel. and to broadcast
it to the world. These are exciting days, and
I hope we appreciate that. Some people think, oh, it's so
bad today, it's so terrible today, it's never been worse than it
is today. Let us not get into the mindset
that makes us drop our heads and contemplate all the bad things
in the world. When the Lord has given us so
much in the way of freedom and privilege to exercise herself
to preach this gospel that has changed us and is able to change
others too. May we never take these privileges
for granted. So Paul is in prison, he's in
Rome, he's getting ready to be tried, and the outcome of his
trial, it would appear, we don't know the exact details, but it
would appear that the outcome of his trial would be his execution. And he asks Timothy, to come
and visit him in prison. That's what he's doing in this
letter. So when we talk about 2 Timothy, it's the second epistle,
the second letter that we have in our Bibles that Paul wrote
to this young man, Timothy, and he asks Timothy in this letter
to come and visit him in prison. He says, come and visit me in
prison before winter. before winter comes. Now he was
perhaps thinking about the ease of Timothy's journey and how
difficult it would be to come in the wintertime. But he also
says this, and bring the cloak that I left at Miletus. I wonder
if Paul was cold. I wonder if the old man was starting
to feel the cold in that cell creeping into his bones. And
he asked Timothy not to forget this cloak when he was coming
through Miletum. You know, we don't know if this
meeting ever took place. I like to think that it did.
I like to think that these two friends got together, Paul and
Timothy. The old warrior called Timothy
his own son in the faith, and that they had a final occasion
to meet together and minister and encourage one another before
Paul's execution. And if it didn't happen, well,
the Lord knows. And he was with Paul, even if
Timothy didn't get there. And there's something uplifting
as well, I think, in these little details, little elements of the
history that we can glean from these letters. There's something
uplifting, even perhaps poetic, in thinking that Timothy afterwards
possessed Paul's cloak. And as Elisha took up Elijah's
mantle and wore it during his own ministry as a mark of honour
to Elijah and that the blessings of the prophetic ministry had
passed to Elisha, so Timothy as well, may well have worn that
cloak of Paul as a mark of fidelity to the apostles' doctrine and
teaching. What we do know is that right
to the end of his life, Paul was encouraging and motivating
Timothy to be bold for the cause of Christ, telling him God hath
not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and
of a sound mind. God hath not given us the spirit
of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. And these are characteristics.
These are attributes. really of every true preacher
and they are fine qualities for all believers to possess. We live as believers like foreign
travelers in a strange land. We live like a minority community. We are aliens in this world. We are transients with no fixed
abode. We're vulnerable. We're a little
flock in a wilderness world. And we have neither earthly riches,
nor physical defense, nor strength in numbers. We're not many, wise
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. Without doubt,
God's remnant people are few and feeble, like the coney rabbits
that spoken about again in Solomon's Proverbs, the coney rabbits that
hide in amongst the rocks, that make their homes in the rocks.
But listen, brothers and sisters, let us never forget that we have
the Lord on our side. We have the Lord who has said,
I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say,
the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto
me. And this was a lesson that Timothy
had to learn, and we all do. We have not been given a spirit
of fear. The spirit that we have been
given is loving and joyful and peaceful and patient and gentle
and good, faithful and meek. It is many things alike to Christ. But it is not fearful. It's not
fearful. We have no need to fear anything
in this world. When our creator and ruler has
said, ye shall be my people and I will be your God. And fear
not, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. We have
one who has vouched safe our everlasting happiness and guaranteed
our eternal glory. And he's demonstrated his unwavering
faithfulness to his church in this world. So in our verses
today from this little passage in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter
one, we see why The Apostle Paul says to Timothy that he's not
to be afraid, he's not to fear. The first reason given is this,
because you have been given a spirit of power. You have a spirit of
power, which is, or perhaps we should rather say, who is the
Holy Spirit? If we are believers, we have
been given the Holy Spirit. We've been thinking about some,
I think you have as well, some passages in John chapter 14,
15, and 16. And in those passages, we are
told that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all come,
the three persons of the Godhead, all come independently and dwell
in the lives of the Lord's people. and we have the Holy Spirit,
that power from on high, so that every converted child of God
has dwelling in us the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost. Now think on
that when you go to school tomorrow, or go to work, or get involved
in the world responsibility. You have the Holy Ghost living
in you. Sometimes I think if we could
just believe what the scriptures tell us about how blessed and
how privileged we are as the people of God, how much more
comfortable and how much calmer our lives would become in the
face of the challenges around us. I wonder if you've ever heard of
people talking about their secret power. Is that familiar to you,
people saying that? I do, maybe you don't. Maybe
I'm mixing different circles. In these days of X-Men and Marvel,
have you heard of those? Yeah, I bet you have. I bet you have. It appears that
everybody's got a secret power. But you know what? Christians
have. Christians have. Christians have
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Power, living in us. The Spirit of Power, God the
Holy Spirit, came at our conversion and took up residence in our
lives. He dwells in this body. Paul
says we are the temple of the Holy Ghost. And let's not diminish
that statement by regarding it as metaphorical or symbolic.
If we had the physical Lord Jesus sitting here today, we could
not be more blessed and more safe and more privileged than
having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in our heart. He's our comforter,
he's our counselor, he's our friend. He's our shield and defender
by whom in our lives the Lord God is daily achieving His will
of gathering His church and accomplishing His purposes. We are His hands,
we are His tools, we are what He uses to accomplish His purpose
in this world. And our God is daily achieving
His will in gathering His church He's accomplishing his purposes
of judgment and grace. And yes, we are mocked. And yes,
we are criticized. And yes, we are tempted and tried.
And we're tested. But all of these challenges are
constructive in order to prove our mettle. and confirm our dedication. So let us stand boldly, is what
Paul is saying to Timothy. And what the scriptures say to
us, let us stand boldly as men and women of truth, for truth,
of Christ, for Christ. The Holy Spirit of power within
us shall overcome this world by us. However, Paul isn't done, and
the spirit of power that has been given to us is blessedly
complemented with a spirit of love. Now, we've noted that the
Holy Spirit does not come alone into a believer's life, but brings
with him the fruit of the Spirit and holiness. Foremost amongst the fruit of
the Spirit is the fruit of love, love to God, love to Christ,
and love for the brethren, for Christ's church and for Christ's
people. And love inspires commitment,
and it inspires sacrifice and boldness. True love motivates
us to protect what we love. Ask any dad, ask any mum, true
love inspires us to protect what we love. And it moves us, it moves us
to face any foe. That is why when the church really
gets put under pressure, it will serve until it bleeds. It will serve until it is extinguished. That is the nature of the love
that God the Holy Spirit has placed in our lives. And when believers love God and
the people of God, they're not easily intimidated by our adversaries. Just as all believers have the
spirit of power, so all believers have a spirit of love to the
Lord, and in him, kindness, gentleness to all those whom the Lord loves. John, the apostle, says we love
him because he first loved us. Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen ye love, we know that we have passed from death unto life
because we love the brethren. So that when Paul spoke, when
he wrote to Timothy about these spiritual qualities, it was to
motivate him to act like the man that he was, indwelt by the
Spirit of God and possessed of love, for Christ and his people. And that's the believer's calling,
not just Timothy's, it's our calling too. It's our calling
in all matters. The true people of Jesus Christ
do not have to be bullied with the law, or threatened with loss,
or bribed with gain. We don't need to have our attitudes
puffed up as if we're praised because of the things that we
do or criticized because we don't do them. That's not how the people
of God are motivated. We're motivated by the spirit
that is within us. It is enough that we have to
remind one another what the Lord has done for us. and for the
great mercy that he has shown to us. If God's love and grace
in the gospel does not motivate us to worship and serve, nothing
will. Nothing will. So there is a cause
in Israel. There is a cause in the church
of Jesus Christ. We are all laborers in the vineyard. soldiers in the field, servants
in the master's house. To this end, that he will bring
all things to be according to his purpose. Our labor is not
for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth
unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto
you. We labor for spiritual growth
and increase in the church. And we know that this is the
Lord's work. Our fight is not against flesh
and blood. We wrestle against principalities
and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Yet we know this
battle is the Lord's. And victory is assured. Our service
is to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is our reasonable service. And we have the spirit
and power to do so. And the third quality that Paul
highlights to Timothy here, he says, you don't have the spirit
of fear, Timothy. You don't have the spirit of
fear. You've got the spirit of power, and you have the spirit
of love. And the third thing he says is
perhaps a little bit surprising. I doubt that many of us would
have guessed that the attribute of a sound mind would be the
third in this list of powers that we have as believers. Who would have thought that a
sound mind would have followed the power of the Spirit and the
love of Christ? yet Paul is reminding Timothy
and us all of the soundness of our doctrine, the soundness of
our doctrine and the reasonableness of our faith. He says we have
The gift of a sound mind. That's nice, because a lot of
people will say that we're stupid. A lot of people will say that
we are mad, that we believe the things that we believe, that
we're a little bit wonky and we're on the edge of things.
They're not really, well, what is it they used to say? The light's
on, but there's no one at home. Well, the Lord says that we've
got the gift of a sound mind. And we have no reason to be ashamed
for the testimony of our Lord. We have no reason to be ashamed
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not us that's mad
for believing it, it's them who are mad for not believing it.
We are the ones with the sound mind. Paul, as he preached the gospel,
knew it to be the power of God unto salvation. He knew that
the world would mock our faith as foolishness. But it is true
wisdom. That is the true wisdom of this
world. It is the wisdom of God. To be
saved by grace is the wisdom of God. To be cleansed by the
blood of Christ is the wisdom of God. to be converted through
the preaching of the gospel isn't a foolish notion. It's the wisdom
of God. It's the best thing that could
possibly happen in this world to sinners like you and me. And we must never feel embarrassed
to explain what it is that we believe. Paul could say he gloried
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, despite the shame and
dishonor attached to it in the minds of Jews and Romans alike
in his day. Jews thought if you got hung
on a cross on a piece of wood, it was a curse, and well, the
Romans did it because it was the most ignoble way that they could present
a convict and despise that person they crucified them. And the
message of salvation by grace will be mocked and rejected. It was in Paul's day, because
the religion of his time was all about doing things to please
God. You know what, it hasn't changed
much. That's the same religion that we see around us today.
Or maybe the gods, if you were a Gentile. It was about personal sacrifice
to appease them. You spent your life trying to
do deals with the gods. You did good works to make them
happy and you sacrificed something valuable when they were angry
or unhappy. It was a straight deal that was
done. And you never really knew if
your efforts had been successful. And when Paul went to Athens
and he saw the altars to multiple gods where offerings were made,
And there, surrounded by the Stoics, the philosophers, the
Epicureans, he preached Jesus Christ crucified. He preached
unto them Jesus and the resurrection. Why? Because he knew that it
was the power and wisdom of God, and he knew it was the way of
salvation and life. 1 Corinthians 1 says, For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto
us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. We preach Christ crucified unto
the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness,
but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. So that here, here with Paul
is what saved men and women who have a sound mind believe regarding
our standing before God and the salvation that we possess. We
believe that salvation is all of God's grace. Let me just unpack
a little bit that phrase free grace. It means that our salvation, our peace and acceptance with
God is a free gift bestowed according to God's own will and pleasure
without any necessary preconditions on our part. We saw that this
morning. God has chosen who he wishes to save and he has done
everything required to secure that salvation and he bestows
it in his own time and according to his own desire. Now I accept
that this is counterintuitive to human reason and it's counterintuitive
to the received wisdom of this world. If we are going to benefit
from God's goodness, we might be expected to earn it in some
way. Or at the very least, desire
it. Please God or appease God. Just the same as the old Jews
and the old Gentiles, the old Romans did. Laboured all their
life either to please him or else give up something to appease
him. If we are going to benefit from
God's goodness, we might expect to have to earn it in some way. But that assumes we have the
power to work for God's pleasure. And it assumes we have a desire
to do so. And yet the Bible clearly teaches
that in our own nature, as a result of the fall, as a result of sin,
there is neither ability nor desire to please God. Regardless
of what we tell ourselves about ourselves. We shall always be
in our hearts bitter enemies towards God and rigid opponents
of all that is holy and true unless he converts us himself. God has saved us. It's the foremost
principle of scripture. It is the greatest delight of
the people of God to heartily agree that salvation is of the
Lord. From start to finish, salvation
is by the grace of God alone. We've seen this. I won't repeat
myself, but let us in our minds understand this message. A sound
mind is a renewed mind. A mind liberated from the bondage
of sin, from the rule of Satan and the fetters, the bonds, the
chains of self-righteousness. Such a mind knows there is no
good thing in us, nothing good that the Lord has not put there.
No native strength in us, no latent desire to overthrow that
natural opposition, that natural antipathy that we feel towards
God. A renewed mind is a mind that
is made wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. God has called us with a holy
calling. And every man Woman, boy or girl
with a sound mind hears that call and longs for the holiness
without which no man can see the Lord. What once appeared
foolishness now appears wise and desirable. What once held
no attraction for us now fills us with joy and peace and hope. where once we would mock the
Christian, now we are glad to stand with them against the world
and live our lives to the glory of God. And our sound mind has
learned that our salvation is not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose. And how glad we are that it is
so. We've discovered our own weakness
and inability And we, having tried our best to please God
by every means that we can imagine, we're now content to take him
at his word. Our sound mind also realizes
that our salvation is by grace, which was given to us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. How could it be otherwise? Our
Savior is the author and finisher of faith. He knows the end from
the beginning, and he does all things according to his own will. He is God. He is worthy of our
worship and our adoration and our gratitude. And all this,
once hidden from our eyes, awaited the perfect timing of God's wisdom
and his mercy towards us in the gospel. The power and the wisdom
of God unto salvation has been revealed to us by his grace.
2 Timothy 1, verse 10, the end of our passage today says, 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. Let our confidence always be
in the gospel. and the one of whom the gospel
speaks. It is the doctrine of a sound
mind. It is the divine revelation from
heaven that salvation is of the Lord, and it saves sinners, and
it nourishes souls, and it feeds the sound mind. May the Lord
bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.