Hold the Line

Beautifying the bride, and that's what 1 and 2 Timothy is about. Matter of fact, that's what the purpose of God is about. Matter of fact, that's what all the scriptures are about. God's chief primary work is building his church for his own glory. And Paul's writing to Timothy from prison, awaiting his soon execution, at least that's the context of 2 Timothy. And in one sense, he's pastoring the church through Timothy. He just keeps outlining, do this, do that, function this way, organize this that way, so that he might work through Timothy to beautify the local church there, as far as its form and its fashion. And when we get to 2 Timothy, Paul spends significant energy just trying to keep Timothy on track. Not that Timothy's rebellious or anything, but he just knows there's difficult days coming. Paul knows there's warfare and strife and undermining and slanders will come against Timothy. So he's, again, as we pick up the text today, trying to hold Timothy up and strengthen him afresh. And I just want to be honest with you, I want to amen here, but I have too much outline and I have too many notes. I just wrestled this text, got me in a headlock and held me on the ground.

All day yesterday. I had studying done, but it just, it was just challenging. So I pray that my feeble efforts to outline the text, I mean that genuinely, in no way hinder the glorious truth that God wants us to receive. So Paul writing 2 Timothy, chapter 2, beginning in verse 13 and going down to the end of the chapter, verse 18. He writes, Timothy, retain the standard of sound words, which you've heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you. You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. The Lord grant mercy to the house of Inesperus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he was in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me.

The Lord granted him to find mercy from the Lord on that day, and you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus. As we unpack this exposition, I've entitled it, Hold the Line. Hold the Line for pastors or church leaders or just heads of households or any Christian. That's an important charge and exhortation to remember because there's going to be constantly efforts to undermine you as far as your faith and your walk with Christ. And in particular, of course, here he's saying, Timothy, hold the line. When the pressures come and you want to quit or you want to compromise, you want to bend the edges on truth a little bit to get along better with the culture of the day, Timothy, don't do it. Timothy, hold the line.

Three major points let's look at. First of all, hold the line concerning doctrine and methods. Doctrine and methods. Look at verse 13 again. He says, Retain the standard of sound words.

Now the word standard there could easily be translated pattern, form, or structure. Matter of fact, in Philippians 3 17, this exact same Greek word is translated pattern. So I agree with John Calvin who says that though doctrine is emphasized here, retain the standard of sound words doctrine, it's more than just the cold doctrine on a profession of faith sheet, let's say. It means the things I taught you about how to live out the doctrine and teach and preach and administer the doctrine.

Hold all of it. That's something we are very committed to in Anchored in Truth Ministries and the Pastors Training Institute when we support these guys and help them get out on the field and help them plant a church or revitalize a church. We want a commitment that you're going to hold to sound doctrine and to some essential biblical methodologies.

That's exactly what this word means. So let's unpack it from there. Four thoughts here about holding the line on concerning doctrine and methods. A, secure them. First of all, I've given them to you, Paul said to Timothy, now hold them secure them.

He uses the word retain here, retain these methods of and sound words. Now of course, sound words must include the body of doctrine that Paul imparted to Timothy. God gave it to Paul, Paul gave it to Timothy and to other faithful brethren. And then Timothy in 2 Timothy 2, 2 is to take those doctrines, not new ones, not new spins on the old doctrine, those sound words and teach it yet to other faithful men. And so in God's local churches, this pattern continues on and on down to Grace Life Church Muscle Shoals and Grace Life Church Hastings, Nebraska. Amen, Brother Chad? That's our job. Take that doctrine, once for all delivered to the saints and pass it on.

Secure it so you can reproduce it. We have a statement of faith here at Grace Life Church and four Anchored in Truth Ministries and it's built off of what's called the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, which was the first prominent statement of faith among Baptists in America. And it has several articles whereby men have tried to take the systematic balance of true Bible doctrine and organize it into articles or areas.

For example, our doctrine has an article on the scriptures, an article on the true God, an article on the fall of man, the way of salvation, justification, an article on the freeness of salvation, an article on grace in regeneration, an article on what is repentance and faith, an article on God's purpose of grace, an article on sanctification, an article on the perseverance of the saints, an article on the harmony of the law and the gospel, an article on the gospel church, on the ordinances of baptism in the Lord's Supper, on the Christian Sabbath, civil government, on the righteous and the wicked in the coming judgment, and the world to come, and an article on the family and human sexuality. These are sound words we hold to. Something new comes along, our new idea comes along, we open that old statement up and say, does it work with this statement? Timothy, hold the standard, the pattern of sound words. Can I use for just a practical exhortation to the church today, look at the book of Jude, because Jude gives us a keen insight into what it means and how important it is to hold to this sound doctrine. In Jude chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly, this means to fight like in a contest, to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. Then he goes on to say, because there are certain persons that are always trying to get us not to stand on the faith, that was once for all handed down to the saints. Now the faith here does not mean belief. Sometimes, of course, most of the time in the New Testament talks about faith, it's talking about your personal belief or your personal faith in Jesus Christ, not here. This means the thing in which you place your faith, the thing in which you believe is called the faith. Like in Galatians 1 23, we're referring to Paul, it says, he who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith, that body of doctrine we hold to. Philippians 1 27 is another example, striving with one mind for the faith of the gospel.

So in our context here, among other things, Timothy, hold the line and secure, retain the faith, the sound words. Now we go on down a little bit, Jude points out that one of the reasons, go back to Jude if you would on the screen, three and four, that one of the reasons why it's going to be so hard to hold to the faith is because there are certain types of people that are incessantly fervent and vigorous to get you to change your conviction about sound doctrine. And particularly, he says, there are those who, verse four, turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. He said, Timothy, one of the most difficult groups who will be pounding on the door of the church to get you to compromise and change your convictions about the doctrines I gave you will be those people in the culture who've been given over to sexual immoralities. Because once they walk in that, they're convicted, their conscious condemns them and they don't want anybody else condemning them, so they want you to move your teaching off of the holy doctrines of the faith and find something that will complement them in their sinful indulgence. He magnifies this in verse seven of Jude, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh and are exempted as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal life.

What's the context? The context is these type people, and here specifically that have given themselves over to unnatural sexual immoralities, will constantly be bombarding the church with, you've got to change. We don't want to feel guilty about this. So church, stop it. Hillary Clinton said when she was running for office a while back, the church must change some of its teaching.

I've got news for Hillary Clinton or anyone else. Paul told us, the Word of God tells us, our God tells us, hold, retain, secure the sound words, no matter what they say or do or threaten, and they're certainly doing it. So Jude points out a most grievous and most flagrant or outrageous example of the type of people, not the only ones, but the some of the major people who try to undermine our doctrine and press on us to change. So Timothy, there is every need for me to caution you.

As I'm in prison, facing my soon execution, whatever else you do Timothy, I gave you the truth. Don't tamper with it, don't change it, secure it. Well secondly, not only would this text tell us to secure doctrine and sound methods, it would tell us to administer them, to administer them. Don't just hold it, don't let your profession of faith and the methods of Scripture be something that's on a piece of paper or on a computer file back in some office somewhere.

Make it shoe leather in your life. Follow my example is what he's saying here, because the Word again, the, how does he word it? Verse 13, the standard, the pattern of sound words. Now when I think about the pattern that Paul would have been telling Timothy to maintain, I think the primary thing, I'm not saying it's everything, we don't know. We could take the balance of Paul's teachings and certainly glean some patterns, but there's one consistent pattern that I think is overarching over everything else and it ties into the first sub point and that is it was Paul's pattern to administer the truth no matter the situation. If you're counseling with someone, we don't look to Freud and we don't look to Skinner, we look to Paul and we look to John and we look to Matthew. We look to the Word of God.

In anything and everything we go to the sound doctrines of the faith. That's why when Paul was finishing up his ministry here in Ephesus, you remember Timothy is pastoring or overseeing the church at Ephesus, Paul is writing to Timothy to help him along in that, but when Paul was with this church, he was there for three years, and as he was wrapping up his ministry knowing that imprisonment and probably death was ahead for him, the last thing, let me say one of the very last things he said to those elders in Acts 20-27, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. That was Paul's method. That was Paul's pattern. So Timothy, now you administered, make this the pattern of your ministry. You administered also in all of your counseling and teaching and exhortation and reproving and personal ministry and public ministry, give the people of God the whole counsel of God.

These are the sound words including the pattern you're to follow. Follow my example in these things, Timothy. Thirdly, the doctrine and the methods that were to hold the line on would hold the line by treasuring them, treasuring them. Now scholars kind of are all over the place on this next phrase and basically because none of us can say dogmatically what exactly it means, except I know I found out what it means. I will say this, if that's not specifically what it means, what I'm going to tell you is thoroughly taught in the balance of Scripture, so I'm not teaching heresy. The last phrase there in verse 13, he says, I want you to retain the standard of sound words, you've heard it from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

And I'm convinced what the conclusion I'm going to share with you is the missing link in so many churches and so many ministries today that is there is a lack of treasuring the truths of God. In other words, I think what Paul's saying is, Paul's saying, you know we're not like the Judaizers. We're not like the old Jewish legalists. Our religion is not cold orthodoxy, Timothy. Our faith we hold to is not rigid legalisms.

It's not just the letter of the law. We function out of a faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This flavors, it gives the tone to what everything that we are about in God's work in his church. You see, Paul walked in the reality that John walked in and talked so much about in his epistle. 1 John 4 19 reminds us, he first loved us. 1 John 4 10 says, not that we loved God, but he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. So when we're teachers and preachers, small group leaders or just Christians helping each other, when we're teaching God's truth, it comes from a heart that's never gotten over the love of God. I think that's what Paul is bringing out here. Timothy, don't just teach the doctrine, adore the doctrine. Because it's the doctrine of our God.

You see, sound doctrine is the very expression of the wisdom and character of our God. And you can't love one and not love the other. You always love them both. You see, he loved me first and he loves me most. He laid down his life for us.

So I now am learning to love him first and now I'm learning to love him most more than any other. Our hearts are to be aflame with the love and faith of our Savior. So I likewise will love the doctrine, which is the very wisdom and character of my Savior put forth in words, in writing. Paul is saying afresh to Timothy, here's another pattern, here's another example to follow. You got it from me.

Look at your heart. Are you just doing stuff, trying to be quote successful, building up the numbers of the church or whatever? No, Timothy, that's not what we do. We teach the truth out of a rich, vital love for Christ.

He's changed us. He's given us that heart of love. Sometimes I use the phrase, don't just love true doctrine, but love the God of true doctrine.

Can't love one without the other. If I might give an application because this has kind of been a hot issue in Baptist life lately, we're not to settle for loving any concept or teaching of God that is less or that contradicts sound doctrine. There's a lot of this, Brother Chad, I know you see it, we all see it, there's a lot of this mushy sentimentality about Jesus. And we have a very prominent woman teacher preacher in America today and she's wonderfully talented in her verbal skills. She's a good orator. She's clever with her words. She has much passion in emotionism, emotionalism and zeal in her teaching that draws people in, especially silly women.

Remember we talk a lot about silly women and principled women? But when you study what she says, it's like she has a schoolgirl crush on a romanticized image of Jesus. It's a Jesus that's not really the Jesus of scripture.

Either it's a mildly biblical view of him or an unbiblical view of him. So we don't want to get caught on that. That's not holding to sound doctrine.

Let's be careful, folks. Everything that's taught from a professing preacher or teacher that has Jesus slathered on it and moves us with emotion and maybe even tears may not be of God. Test it by the sound words once for all delivered to the saints. So Paul is kind of saying, Timothy, keep this balance. Hold rigidly to sound doctrine, it never changes. But with a warm heart, a heartfelt treasuring of Christ, Timothy, that was my pattern.

Now you keep it going. Timothy, secure it, administer it, treasure it. And thirdly, when concerning doctrine and sound methods, energize them.

He said this in one way already earlier in the chapter, but look at verse 14. In continuing the flow, he says, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in, not you, Timothy, but us. The treasure, you could translate treasure deposit, it means a good thing. There's been a good thing deposited in you. The treasure which has been entrusted to you.

Now, in a special way, Timothy as a pastor had a higher responsibility than the average Christian to treasure and hold to and energize these things, but it is true for all Christians. You know why you're here on Sunday morning? You're here to get re-energized. You came in here with the doldrums. You came in here with sleepy spirituality because you stayed up too late last night drinking in the things of the world. And they weren't not necessarily evil things, but they weren't the things of God. And you come in here and expect me in an hour to shout that out of you and get you re-energized.

I need some help. Let me charge you again to find a point on Saturday night where you say the television's going off, the computer's going off, the stuff's going off, and we're going to get in the Word. Nothing legalistic about it now, but we're going to seek God before we go to bed so we can wake up better able to get recharged on Sunday morning. Is that not what Paul is saying when he says, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us? This guarding by the agency of the Holy Spirit in us I think is parallel with what he said in verse 6. Look up earlier in the chapter, for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift, the charisma of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. So earlier in verse 6 he said, like a bellows is blown on the blacksmith's fire to keep the flame full. Timothy also, guard through the Holy Spirit in you what's there. Keep it energized.

Keep it going. Now listen to me, in verse 6 he says, to rekindle it. And here in verse 14 he says, guard, and there are actually two sides of the same coin. If you're guarding it, you're energizing it. If you're energizing it, you're guarding. The best way to guard your faith is to keep it re-energized by sitting under sound preaching and fellowshiping in a local church with solid believers. You're guarding and re-energizing.

They always go together. Timothy, be faithful in that practice. In verse 14 he said, this has been entrusted to you, Timothy. It's been deposited in you and it is a treasure. Again, that it means it's a good thing. And I love what some scholars say.

They said it's an honorable thing. Timothy, we live in a God- dishonoring world, but there's been placed in you something of the highest honorable nature, the Spirit of God. Energize that.

Guard that and keep it energized. In another place, Paul is going to tell Timothy to fight the good fight. That part of that fight, the foundation stone we might say of that fight, is to keep the energizing work of the Spirit in our hearts going. And again, you're re-energized by the Holy Spirit when you get into the Word. How's your time in the Word? How's your time in the Word? How are your morning times with God? What verse?

At least one verse. Did you memorize this week and you're meditating on just to stay energized? God didn't mean for me to do all this for you. What I'm to do is fan the flame that you've been kindling all week. Do you faithfully receive the preaching of the Word of God?

No, no, no. I didn't say, did you attend the church meeting? That's radically different than to come in here and say, God, I'm ready to repent. I'm ready to learn afresh, where my thinking and my emotions have been off of the truth and repent of that and get my heart and my emotions back in line with the truth of the Word of God. That's what every Christian does every Sunday if they're receiving the preaching of the Word. Do you know how much I have to repent preparing to preach to you? At least you could make it even and repent while I'm preaching to you.

And I mean that honestly. It's just me saying, oh dear God, make this true in me as I'm preparing to preach to you. It's us together, amen? Fight for Holy Spirit power in your life. And you know I'm not talking about some of the excesses we see that's called Holy Spirit power, but there is wonderful truth in that old, old song. All self-consume, all sin destroy, with earnest zeal in due, each waiting heart to work for thee, oh Lord, our faith renew.

Send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power, thy floodgates of blessing on us throw open wide, Lord, send the old-time power, the Pentecostal power, sinners be converted in thy name glorified. I think that's what Paul's saying here, is treasure these things, administer these things, follow these patterns. Well, not only hold the line with doctrine and methods, secondly, hold the line, Timothy, when there are deserters that discourage. Timothy, hold the line when there are deserters that discourage. Look at verse 15.

Paul gets just very personal and to the point here. Timothy, you're aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phagellus and Hermogenes. Now, first of all, A, many turn away. If you're a true man of God, true woman of God, in a church that's striving to be a true church of God, you will experience over time many turning away. There is no exception.

Well, I believe there's one exception. If you have the unusual fortune to follow a very faithful pastor before you, you may not experience much of this. In the overwhelming settings that are out there, the churches are in such condition, you're going to have what Paul experienced, many turning away. He says in verse 15, all turned away from me in Asia. Now, Asia in this day is not the Asia of today.

It's a very small piece of land, geographically speaking, and Ephesus was the capital. And Paul, as I told you, spent more time there than anywhere else. In fact, Paul's ministry had a great impact on the whole area of Asia. Listen to what Demetrius does or says as he accuses Paul in Acts 19 26. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people saying that God's made with hands are no gods at all. So this this metal worker who made a fortune off of idols made idols and people would buy these idols and worship them. Paul went through the whole land preaching against that.

It'd be like us preaching on biblical morality in our culture today. And this guy says this, Paul's shaken up people all over the Asian province. So he's had a big impact. So when he says at this point he's in prison on death row and he says, Timothy, all have turned away. That means a lot of folks. Some were favorable to Paul but weren't really believers, but this must include some true believers. At least for a season have grown timid.

We dealt with that earlier in the chapter, timid and cowardly. They turned away from supporting Paul. Matter of fact, the words turn away in verse 15 is the Aorist tense. It means a one-time action and they're continuing in that condition.

They turned away and they're staying in that turned away condition. The Lord Jesus reminded us that under severe persecution this was going to happen. Matthew 24, 12. Because lawlessness has increased most people's love. Most people's love. Professing believers and those who are not believers but were at one time favorable to the church.

Most of that much, their love will grow cold. So Paul says, Timothy, we've got to hold the line. I'm here in prison. Right now nobody's with me.

Right now nobody's supporting me. Many will turn away, Paul says. Secondly, and I'll admit there is some speculation here, but I think I'm on good ground with the balance of biblical truth, the prominent leaders will turn away. He says in verse 15, among all those who turned away Phijelus and Hermogenes are two individuals that turned away.

Well Paul just threw it out there didn't he? So I've got a list here of all of those who've left us over the years without biblical grounds. So I'm going to read their names.

Are you ready? No, I'll not do that. I believe with John Calvin who writes in his commentary that the reason Paul singled these two guys out, Phijelus and Hermogenes, was because they were going around slandering Paul. They were going around saying, we're the righteous and Paul's lost the faith. We're holy ones and you know Paul's in prison because he's messed up. They were going around defaming Paul to defend their apostasy, what they were doing. Y'all pray for Miss Pam because she usually hears my sermons twice.

Once at home and once when she gets here. And I was sharing this part of the sermon about Phijelus and Hermogenes and Calvin's view, which is my view, that these guys were particularly grievous in the way they turned away. And she said, oh that's like they asked for your W-2 for them when you try to join the church.

She said, that's like I was at the emergency room in the hospital and I saw Miss Pam come in and Jeff had beat her up. Did you know those rumors were out there? Well you know now, let's spread it further. Phijelus and Hermogenes are still around today trying to defame the church or the man of God that they might defend their own turning away. So really what Paul is doing here, he's saying, I want to get this out Timothy because it may come back to you and it may be unsettling to you or some in the congregation there. I want to set the record straight on these guys. I'm not the problem, they are. That's what Paul is saying.

Now I don't think Paul would be arrogant about this. All of the challenges and troubles and splits and divisions and warfare as I've been through, we've been through here, there were things for me to learn and things for me to repent about and things for me to grow through. God uses everything, amen? I wasn't guilty of some of the nonsense that was out there but maybe things in my own personal walk or my thinking, whatever it was, there's always room for us to repent when difficulty comes our way. Even if we may be fully innocent of the very issue they're blaming you of, I guarantee you there's something you can repent of and you can grow yourself. Can I get amen there? Yeah, but my wife, yeah, I know she's probably not right but what about you? Yeah, but my husband, I know, but what about you? God's teaching you something too.

Well, this has been going on forever. Chora of the Old Testament rose up against Moses and against God's will. Chora, the Bible says, was a man of renown. He was prominent, probably was better gifted, better able to lead than Moses. So a lot of people followed Chora when he rose up against Moses but there's just one problem with that. God said Moses is going to lead, not about gifts, charisma, talents, it's, I suppose, Moses. So you know how the story goes, if you come up against a real man of God be careful. If he gets on his knees and says, God, I don't know what to do about this guy, you may be in big trouble.

You may be in big trouble. When Moses went to God, God opened up the ground and swallowed up Chora and all of his family and all of those who stood with him. And Moses said, all right, anybody else got any questions about who God has chosen to lead this thing? Because you know Moses didn't sign up for it.

Remember that? God just said, you're gonna come lead my people. I can kind of hear Moses in his own thinking, Lord, now you know I didn't sign up for this. I was minding my business, keeping my father-in-law's sheep in the Midian desert and this bush catches on fire. And here I am. Did God fix this mess?

Because you got me into this. Well anyway, number three, Timothy hold the line on doctrine and on sound methods. Timothy hold the line when there are deserters, deserters rather, that discourage.

And Timothy hold the line because there will always be a faithful remnant that remains and refreshes. We pastors and church leaders can be like the guy who was, had a lot of ponds on his farm and the ponds were full of bullfrogs. He said, man I've got so many bullfrogs around here. So he went down to the local seafood restaurant and he said, sir I'd like to sell you some frog legs for your seafood buffet on Friday night. He said, that's great how many you can give me? He said, I'll get at least 500 pair. I mean I've got a bunch of them. He said, okay bring them in by so-and-so time Friday and I'll pay you for them.

They worked out a deal and the man showed up Friday about two o'clock in the afternoon and he walked in, kind of had a sheepish look on his face and the restaurant owner said, well you got the frog legs? He said, I got them but I only got 10 pair. He said, you said you'd have at least 500 pair?

He said, man when I heard them it sounded like 500. Be like Elijah and said, nobody's left but me. And God said, no wait a minute, time out there's always a remnant. There's always a remnant when Amos went and preached against northern Israel and the compromised Baal-Jehovah worship cult they had started there that was so wildly successful.

Little Amos, country boy Amos, walks in there and denounces the whole thing. But at least, and I greet the scholars, he had a small remnant that was with him. There'll always be a remnant that remains and refreshes. This is what we see in Onesiphorus. Look at verse 16. The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me and he was not ashamed of my change.

Some quick sub points here. First of all, Onesiphorus' true devotion. We see his true devotion. Paul said he was not ashamed of my change.

Two sides to that. Which is not ashamed of my change. He meant literally. Paul was chained in a dungeon or to a Roman soldier. But figuratively in that day that phrase would have been used for a statement of public dishonor and shame. I've been put to great dishonor and shame but it didn't affect Onesiphorus. He still came and ministered to me when nobody else did. It was a time when being associated with a man on death row was certainly publicly shaming to you if you did it.

And secondly, it was personally dangerous. Christianity was an outlawed cult by the Roman emperor. And to be associated with its main leader Paul could mean you would be next. It didn't bother Onesiphorus. Onesiphorus had a vibrant love for God, God's work and God's man and that enabled him to overcome the fear of man. I can hear Onesiphorus say, call me what you like, do to me what you will, but I cannot and I will not separate from Paul.

He is God's man and I stand with him. Onesiphorus name, interestingly enough, means prophet bearer. And that certainly was true to Paul.

He was a great prophet and help to the apostle Paul. Paul says in verse 16, he refreshed me. Onesiphorus refreshed me.

It literally means cooled me, a cooling down. Onesiphorus when he ministered to Paul when others had turned away, brought a cooling refreshment to Paul when he was suffering under the heat of physical ailments and imprisonment and suffering from the heartbreaking abandonment and the widespread public shame. True devotion. Secondly, true zealous devotion. I mean Onesiphorus didn't just kind of check a box and said, okay I visited him, I've done my part. Look, love doesn't check boxes. Love throws his whole self into it.

True zealous devotion. In verse 17, Paul says, he eagerly searched for me and found me. I mean he put a lot of energy and it didn't matter.

He didn't calculate it. He said, here I go. Like Esther of old, if I perish, I perish. It was difficult to find Paul, but he did it.

I mean we can only imagine that the Roman soldiers and Roman guards he had to go through were likely very difficult and that's probably a great understatement. Not just difficult, it was dangerous again to be associated to find Paul. It reminds me of brother David Miller had this verse in his newsletter. Some of you probably got it, but it pricked my heart.

I said, boy that fits Onesiphorus, so I'm going to use it. First Samuel 10, 26 and 27, Saul also went to his house at Gebia, and this is after God made him king, Saul went to his house in Gebia, and the valiant men whose hearts God had touched went with him. Not everybody did though, verse 27, but certain worthless men said, how can this one deliver us?

And they despised him and did not bring him any present, but he kept silent. Some turned away from Saul, but there were men whose hearts God had touched. The Chad, I pray you have men at Grace Life Hastings that God's touched their hearts.

And they won't judge you and beat you up and look at your flaws, they'll say, I'm standing with the man of God. Onesiphorus was a valiant man whose heart God had touched. I can't go here without the picture in my mind of David, King David. The Philistines had captured and occupied the promised land. David runs for his life and he's got a band of men with him that the Bible calls David's mighty men.

King David is hiding out in Abdullam cave. His mighty men are there with him and he's pacing the floor pleading with God, what am I going to do? Would you deliver us from this scourge? And somehow in the course of praying and pleading with God, he just utters out, oh, that I had a drink of water from the springs in Bethlehem. Some of his mighty men heard it, they looked at each other and said, let's go. The Bible says they fought through the Philistine garrisons and went and got a cup of cold water out of the springs of Bethlehem and fought their way back and brought it to King David.

He said, what is this? You said you wanted water from the springs of Bethlehem and we went and got it. That's Onesiphorus. That's the spirit of Onesiphorus.

He's a part of a faithful remnant that remains and refreshes. And just as your pastor this morning, I would be in error not to mention that I thought about so many of you. Matter of fact, I'm honest, there's not one church member, not one church member in this church that in any way reminds me of Phagellus or Hermogenes, but you all have something of the Onesiphorus spirit. But I know there's some pastors that listen to my messages and maybe this is a good one to listen to, but let me say something to you, brothers.

You don't get rid of old Phagellus and old Hermogenes for two or three decades sometimes. But the balance of staying with it over the long haul as soon you get a church that's dominated by Onesiphuses, what a man. True and lasting devotion, that's the third some point because it was lasting, it wasn't just a hit and miss thing with Onesiphorus. In verse 16 he says, He often refreshed me, often refreshed me, was not ashamed of my chains. And then down in verse 18, the Lord grant him defied mercy from the Lord on that day for you know how very well what service is plural he rendered at Ephesus. In other words, Paul's saying from the first time Onesiphorus was converted and said, Paul, I want to go with you and help you, he's been faithful, faithful. And I thought, Lord, how blessed I am.

I mean, my staff counts their time with me in decades, most of them. So many of you have been around for so long and you've been like this, a lasting devotion. And it's hard for a pastor to say this, but it's false humility and really a type of pride if we don't say it. If your pastor has proven faithful, you be an Onesiphorus and you are. Because then God says, I won't hold you accountable at the judgment bar of God if the church isn't right, I'll hold him because you honored him.

But if you're against him and he's trying to do right, you may be in big trouble. How I regularly think of many of you, couples, marriages, homes, households, and honestly, it is the continual flow of my heart, oh God, thank you for them. Just had my 40th anniversary, such kindness, such gratitude, such sweetness shown to Pam and I and our family. And I just think about you and I just keep saying, God bless them, God help them, God thank you for them, God encourage them. Jesus said in Matthew 25, again the context is severe persecution, but he said this, even something as small as a cold cup of water to one of my suffering children, I'll mark it and won't forget it, being Onesiphorus for the work of God and the man of God.

Now I just want to be transparent, I lack nothing, there's nothing else you need to do for me. My elders are wonderful, I'm Onesiphorus full, I just am. But that's a testimony of God's grace, amen, God's grace, amen, grace, you're only still here because grace wouldn't let you go nowhere else. Trust me, I'm only still here because I had nowhere else to go, and that was grace.

It's grace upon grace upon grace. Can I, last point, last sub-point here, that Timothy hold the line because there's going to be a faithful remnant who will refresh you, the tender affection and blessing toward the faithful. Paul says in verse 16, grant mercy to his house. Now notice that, not just on Isphorus, his whole household, now that word oikos, house household, means his family, his extended family, it probably meant servants, slaves maybe, work associates even, it could be a lot of folks. And here's the powerful thing here, men are you listening?

Heads of households are you listening? If you'll honor God, God's church and God's man, there's a sense in which the blessing comes on them and sloshes out to all the rest of the folks in your household. Paul said, I want mercy for the whole household of Onesiphorus. Are you the kind of man that God's going to throw blessings out so that they splatter all over the whole household?

The kind of woman that has Onesiphorus, spirit in your heart and God brings blessings to you. If Jesus said, if you just give a cup of water to one who's suffering for my name's sake, I'm going to mark it and remember it and bless you for it, reward you for it. How much more if you're like Onesiphorus and you've exhibited true devotion, zealous devotion and lasting devotion. And look at verse 18, the Lord grant to him to find mercy from the Lord on that day.

I don't know what that means. I just don't know exactly what that means because if you're God's child you will have mercy on that day. But there's something of a specialness about these long-term Onesiphamous type servants, that in that day they're going to be blessed. Think about it, here Paul is in his ministry praising God, lifting up the name of Onesiphorus, asking God to bring special mercies and blessings on Onesiphorus. While I don't know what that means, I know that's much, much, much, much, much, much better than being remembered by the men of God the way Paul remembered Alexander the coppersmith. In second Timothy 4 14, God lifts up, I read that Paul remembers Alexander the coppersmith saying, he did much harm to me and the Lord will repay him. You don't want the man of God remembering you that way before God, trust me.

I would prefer having God's preacher thanking God for me, asking God to bless me because I've been a blessing to him and God's man saying, God he hurt me badly as I was trying to serve you and I ask you God to repay him. Which one are you? Which one will you commit to be from this day forward?

Are they jealous, homogeneous, or an Onesiphorus? Paul says, Timothy hold the line son, hold the line in both the doctrines I've given you and the methods I taught you, hold the line. Timothy hold the line when deserters come, go, and discourage. Timothy hold the line because there's always going to be a faithful remnant that will refresh you. I've been at this over 40 years and I've always had them and you're them. All of God's people said, don't you love the Word of God? Who could have thought this up but God? Powerful stuff.