Fundamental Christian Attitudes: Strength, Part 2

Paul is simply defining for us the character of Christian living that falls into this paradigm of warfare. We are engaged as soldiers.

Point being, you shouldn't be surprised if it isn't easy. You shouldn't be surprised and retreat if there's conflict. This is war and you're a soldier. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. What do the Christians you admire the most have in common? An outgoing personality? Physical strength? A sharp mind?

Or is it something else? Is it more about how they stand strong in the face of disappointment, trial, or temptation to compromise biblical truth? Today on Grace to You, John MacArthur shows you that if you are in Christ, God has given you what you need to exercise that kind of strength, to be a spiritually stable person others can look to in hard times. John is helping you develop that kind of character. We call it spiritual courage as he continues his series titled The Courageous Christian.

So follow along now and here's John MacArthur with today's lesson. JOHN MCCARTHY The Lord calls us to be strong, not weak, but strong, to be able to contend with difficulty, face challenges, meet the enemy, bear the pain, suffer the hardship, uphold what is right, press to the goal and never compromise our convictions, never equivocate on those things that are true and precious. We are not to be weak and vacillating and defeated and all of that, but rather to take the risk, face the attack, face the difficulty triumphantly, never ever letting go of our faith, of our convictions, or of our duties and responsibilities.

Now to find out how that sort of practically fleshes out, we're looking here in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and you can turn to it and we're going to spend the rest of our time looking at these very important verses at the beginning of this chapter. If you want to be strong, first of all, he says, you must be a teacher...you must be a teacher. It is in the process of teaching that you become strong. I'm not just talking about preachers and evangelists and missionaries and Bible teachers, I'm talking about all Christians need to be teaching.

You need to be studying, you need to be learning, you need to be passing it on. Maybe it's in a Sunday school class with children or young people, maybe it's in a discipleship relationship with an individual, maybe it's in a Bible study with your own family or friends, whatever it might be on a campus or at work or some place, you need to be teaching. That's how you become strong because you are forced to come into the Word of God, to clarify it in your own mind, come to your convictions and then to raise your level of accountability as you pass it on. That is the crucial, crucial feature that begins Paul's imagery of a strong Christian.

Now let's look at the second one in verses 3 and 4. If you're going to be a strong Christian, you have to see yourself not only as a teacher with a responsibility to pass truth on, but you have to see yourself as a soldier...as a soldier. In other words, you've got to go into this whole operation of the Christian life realizing that this is a warfare, that this is a serious warfare, that you are engaged in a great ideological battle. And so he says to Timothy in verses 3 and 4, "'Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.'" Now Paul is simply defining for us the character of Christian living that falls into this sort of paradigm of warfare. We are engaged as soldiers.

Point being, you shouldn't be surprised if it isn't easy. You shouldn't be surprised and retreat if there's conflict. This is war and you're a soldier. Now there are a number of things about being a soldier that Paul marks out.

The first one is, suffer hardship. It is not going to be easy. It's not a cakewalk. It's not a waltz in the park.

It's not a skip down the lane. This is war. And war means hardship. It means difficulty. It means a high expenditure of energy. It means a lot of risk. It means that you sort of put your life on the line. It means that you must establish your priorities. It means watchfulness. It means that you look about, understanding that your enemy is a roaring lion going around seeking whom he may devour. It means understanding the schemes of Satan, the wiles of the devil and his cunning craftiness. It means being able to exercise discernment. As it says in 1 Thessalonians 5, we need to be exposed obviously to prophesying, to prophetic utterance, or to preaching.

And we need to listen to that and not despise it. But immediately after that he says, exercise discernment. Examine everything carefully. You are a watchman. You're on reconnaissance.

You're sorting out what's coming at you. Everything demands the vigilance and the energy and the risk and the trauma and the difficulty of engaging yourself in a real war. Now there are some other things about soldiering.

Not only in verse 3 does he say, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, but in verse 4 he adds a couple of other components. There's a certain measure of suffering obviously in soldiering, but secondly there's another element to this. He says, no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life. Another thing that is true about soldiering is that it's a full-time job. When a soldier is called into the military, he has to cut all the cords.

This is not part-time service. This is not being in the reserves where you may or may not ever be called up to active duty. When one goes into the military, he cuts all the cords, all the relationships. He goes to a different place. He lives in a different environment.

He dresses differently. He is under the authority and control of people who are all in charge of him every waking moment of his life. He takes orders from beginning to end of his tour of duty and he must do what he is told to do. He has no personal life.

He has no private life to speak of when he is engaged as a soldier. And so it is in the spiritual realm. It is not something that is a part-time enterprise. It is a full-time life-long commitment. We have been called to this duty. We have been called to serve the great general, the great king, the Lord Himself, and it is a total life involvement.

It may take us to very extreme suffering, as in the case of the apostle Paul, or a much lighter load of suffering as in most of our cases, but it is nonetheless a war that involves some hardship and involves a total commitment. It's not a part-time job. I'm not saying you don't work. It's just that when you're at work, you're a soldier for Christ.

I'm not saying you don't go to school. It's just that when you're at school, you're a soldier for Jesus Christ. In other words, the primary issue in your mind is the spiritual battle. The primary issue is to confront the issues that must be confronted in that spiritual battle, whether they be the false ideologies in which men entomb themselves that must come down under the power of the truth, or whether they be Christians who have gotten themselves involved in false teaching or sin and must be confronted in order that they may be rescued from the enemy at that point. Whatever it might be, wherever we are, we're always on duty.

There's no time when we can set that duty aside. There's a third component that he mentions in verse 4 that is true of soldiering, and that is that the soldier pleases the one who enlisted him as a soldier. The soldier is singularly responsible to please the commander. If you're going to soldier, you have to realize that there's only really one person that you're concerned about and that one person is the commander, the one to whom you are answerable...the one to whom you are answerable. And certainly it is true of the Apostle Paul and of all faithful servants that they served with a view toward that day when they would face the commander. They served with a view to the day when they would hopefully be able to hear, well done, good and faithful servant, or good and faithful soldier. And that's exactly what Paul is saying to Timothy and to us. You want to be a strong Christian? Understand this, it is a war and you are called to suffer.

And when it's difficult, that's because it's war. You shouldn't be surprised by that. You shouldn't be shocked. You're a soldier. You have been prepared for this. You have been armed for this. You have the preparedness. You have the equipment. You have the weaponry. You are trained for this.

You are energized for this. That's why the Apostle Paul fought mightily due to the strength of the Spirit strengthening him and the inner man. So it's clear to us that the second picture here, the second biblical paradigm that he wants us to view ourselves in is that of a soldier.

Let's look at the third one in verse 5. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The third imagery here is that of an athlete. The Greek verb actually is the verb athleo from which we get the transliterated English word athlete. If you were to take that verb athleo, which in the NAS is translated competes as an athlete, and translate it sort of in the original English, it would simply say, as the King James puts it, to strive for the triumph, to strive for the victory.

It means that. It means to strive. And now we begin to look at the imagery of the athlete here and the first thing we see about an athlete is that he competes to win. He strives for the triumph. That's how the King James I think says strives for the masteries, or strives for the victory.

And that's exactly what it's intending to say. An athlete does what he does with a view to the victory. He competes in order to win. I mean, that's essential in athletics.

Anything less than that will render you a terrible kind of dishonor. I always, always respect the athlete who pays the supreme price to be the best in the world because there is a price. And it's not a difference in talent.

At that level, the talent is measurably similar. There's something about winners that makes them go beyond everybody else. The passion to triumph. And it's certainly true in the spiritual realm.

If you're going to be a strong Christian, you've got to get out of yourself and beyond yourself to a goal that is beyond you, a goal that is a heavenly goal, a reward that is an incorruptible and eternal reward. And that's going to cause you to make the necessary sacrifices to run to the very best to the very best of your ability. And then there's another component here in verse 5 as regards the athlete that I would mention to you.

Not only does he run to win, but he doesn't win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. We have, because of the tremendous media exposure through the last several Olympics, all of us have become familiar with those people who cheat, those people who are so terribly dishonored, not only themselves but their whole country bears the shame when they break the rules. We knew that through the years of the Iron Curtain in Europe that the eastern German women were bulking up and gaining immense strength on steroids. They were breaking all the rules of drug allowances and drug tolerances, violating them all.

At the time, for whatever reasons, they were able to escape. We found out the Chinese athletes had been engaged in very similar things. We remember the story of the fencer whose foil was rigged and so he was scoring when he wasn't actually hitting his opponent. We remember bending the fencer and Ben Johnson, the great Canadian sprinter who violated the rules and was terribly discredited, and along with him his nation was shamed for breaking the rules. You don't win the prize unless you keep the rules. There's a marvelous discipline, there's a wondrous discipline in athletics at that point. There's a certain honor, there's a certain integrity that has to be there.

Nothing to me is more tragic than when somebody is running the race as an athlete and just violates the rules. If you're going to be an athlete, you're going to run to win. You've got to have a goal out there that's beyond yourself and it has to be something that's transcendent enough and compelling enough to drive you...to drive you. And when you set your affections on things above and when the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal reward that awaits those who are faithful will be given to you and in turn you can take it and give it back to Him and cast it at His feet, when you're moved by that, it will draw out of you all the best you have to offer. Well then there's verse 6, and here we have the fourth picture that Paul gives to Timothy of a strong Christian. He is, first of all, a teacher and he is given the responsibility to pass on truth by which he himself is strengthened. Secondly, he is a soldier. He is armed and armored for this. He is willing to suffer hardship. He disentangles himself from the affairs of everyday life and he does what he does to please the commander.

He is an athlete who has a goal in mind, a transcendent goal that makes him set aside the weights and all the encumbrances so that he can run with alacrity and speed and he always keeps the rules. And now we find him defined as a farmer. And first thing it says, he is a hard-working farmer.

What do farmers do? Very simple. They sow seed and they harvest it.

Very simple. It's a magnificent imagery. And it's really what we do. We sow seed and we harvest it.

That's hard work, by the way. The hard-working farmer is busy sowing seed. He's busy sowing seed. Now if you, in your mind, can go back to Matthew chapter 13, you remember in Matthew 13 the parable of the soils? It's a very magnificent parable and it tells us something that you cannot forget.

It is this, a very simple lesson. There are all kinds of soils. Some of them will reject the truth and some of them will receive it.

That's what that tells us. There were six soils in that parable. There was hard ground which immediately rejected the truth. There was weedy ground in which the truth found some welcome, began to grow, sprouted up a little bit, at least the stalk did and the sun came out and burned it and it died because there was no depth. Rather the stony ground, not the weedy, that's the third one. The stony ground literally means a rock bed under the soil and the roots couldn't go down and they went as far as they could, couldn't get to the moisture, the sun burned and it died.

The third one was the weedy or thorny ground where when the farmer tilled the ground, he didn't get the weeds out and the weeds grew faster than the grain and choked it out and killed it. Those are three negative responses. Some people are hard, they just react immediately with indifference and they have no hearing of the Word. Some people hear it, they respond with joy for a little while.

When tribulation comes, they disappear. Some people respond momentarily, but the love of the world and the deceitfulness of riches takes over the noxious weeds of materialism and the seed is choked out. But then there are three good soils and some produce a hundredfold and some sixtyfold and some thirtyfold. So you have six soils.

Now it's all about soils. What is most wonderful about that parable is it doesn't say anything about the skill of the sower, nothing about it. It isn't a parable that says, now look, if you want to win the world, folks, if you want to be effective in evangelism, here's what you need to do. You've got to learn how to throw seed. Sower number one did this and he wasn't very good, so it doesn't tell that.

That's not the story. It has nothing to do with the skill of the sower because it's not the skill of the sower, it's the state of the soil, okay? To put the illustration in a simple and graphic figure, imagine a very skilled farmer sowing seed and he's very...he's very good at it, he's got good dexterity, he's done it all his life, he reaches in his pouch and he scatters it almost perfectly in the rows. Behind him is his son who's five or six years old and his father's made him a little pouch. He's got a little fat hand with short fingers like little guys have and he doesn't do it very well. He throws it in his father's hair, down his father's back, all over the place, chunks of it here, chunks of it there.

The bottom line is the little guy isn't very good at it. But here's the principle. Whenever seed hits good soil, it produces fruit, whether thrown by the skilled sower or the unskilled one. It is not the skill of the sower that makes the difference, it's the condition of the soil. The Lord plows the soil, you throw the seed. The moral of that story is the more seed you throw, the more likely you are to hit soil that is prepared, right? So throw as much seed as you can in as many directions as possible. Work hard at it. Never pass up an opportunity to speak a word for the gospel, whether it's hard ground, whether it's temporarily responsive or whatever. Just keep throwing seed.

You say, I'm not very good at it. Let the seed do its work. You don't need to mess with the seed and you can't determine the soil.

All you can do is throw the truth. The more you do it, the more likely you are to hit the soil. You are to hit the good ground. You don't know where the good soil is.

God knows and God plows, and sometimes it's in very unlikely places. But hard-working farmers just keep sowing seed. You want to be a strong Christian? Work hard at sowing the seed. Work hard at harvesting. Work hard, if I can extend the metaphor, at watering, building on somebody else's sowing. There's a second compelling issue about farmers. Not only do they sow seed, but as I said, they harvest it.

They're to be the first to receive their share of the crops. You know what, this is really good. The good part of farming, you get to bring in the crop. Boy, that is a compelling thing to me. I love that. That is such an exhilarating joy. That is such a wonderful reality to be involved in leading people to Christ. That's one of the reasons I love to sow seed because I like the harvest, don't you?

Is anything more exciting than leading someone to Jesus Christ? Anything more exciting than finding out that in some heart where you sowed the seed, God allowed it to grow into eternal life? That's what we do. We're farmers. We sow seed. We sow seed. We sow seed. And God produces life and we taste the harvest. Tremendous joy.

Well, my time is gone. Just sum it up. You want to be a strong Christian? Here's the image.

Here's the image. Be a teacher. Be a soldier. Be an athlete.

Be a farmer. Now listen carefully as I close. Four pictures. You got them? Let me roll them into one.

Just need one picture. Verse 7, consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding and everything. Paul, that's just a way of saying, get this, will you? Let me drive this one in.

Let me drive this home. You've got to understand this. How, Paul? Remember Jesus Christ.

Why does He say that? You tell me. Who is the greatest teacher that ever walked the earth? Jesus Christ. Who's the greatest soldier, fought the greatest battle, won the greatest victory?

Who's the greatest athlete, ran the greatest race, won the greatest crown and never broke a rule? Who's the true farmer who really plants the seed and brings in the harvest and gets all the glory? Jesus. Paul says, look, consider what I say and the Lord give you understanding.

And if you want that understanding, just take all four pictures, roll them into one and remember Jesus Christ. He's your model. Was He a teacher? Was He a teacher?

A faithful teacher who always spoke the truth, who always penetrated every situation with the truth? Did He pass it on so that others could pass it on? Yes. Was He the soldier? Was He always in the battle?

Was He always waging war against the lies and the deception and the enemy? Yes. Is He the athlete who runs the truest, purest race with the greatest amount of effort, never distracted from that final goal, always doing what He did to please the Father who sent Him, never breaking a rule?

Absolutely. Is He the one who always sows the seed? Is He the one who energizes every sowing that ever takes place and gets credit for every harvest and rejoices in every harvest eternally?

Indeed He is. So, summing it up, it's right back to where you thought we might get. If you're a strong Christian, you're going to look a lot like Christ, increasingly being conformed into His image. That's the way the church needs to be, strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And we end up in verse 8 where we started in verse 1. Father, thank You for our time. It's been so refreshing to be with Your saints, to be with Your beloved people, so refreshing to sing songs of praise and hear songs of testimony and hear the words of these young people who have spoken of Your love for them and Your work in their hearts. And it's been challenging to hear again that You want us to be strong. Lord, keep us strong for Your glory and Your honor, in Christ's name.

Amen. That's John MacArthur, the Bible teacher with grace to you since 1969. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in Southern California. And today he showed you how to become a Christian who doesn't break when life storms all around you. It's part of his current study titled, The Courageous Christian. John, near the end of today's lesson, you talked about living and working in light of the end, using our time to prepare for the return of Christ.

Explain what that kind of forward-thinking ministry looks like here at Grace to You. Well, it may seem a little bit oversimplified to say this, but we don't live with the kind of fear that something is going to come out of nowhere from the devil, maybe, and halt the work of the Lord. We also don't feel, and this is really important, that there's something going to come up in the culture that's going to cause us to want to rethink how we do everything. Right. I mean, if you listen to the supposed church-growth experts these days, they would tell you that what we're doing is archaic, teaching the Bible verse by verse. Come on, give me a break.

You can't reach this culture this way. So we don't have any interest in altering anything, because we know the power is in the Word of God. We've seen it now for decades and decades and decades. And so you could say, well, we're getting closer to the end. What would you change? And the answer would be absolutely nothing.

Absolutely nothing. We're thankful for how this ministry has flourished for 50 years, really amazing, half a century. And we've been doing the same thing for that whole entire half a century, and just accumulating more and more and more teaching from the Word of God. But along with all that teaching have come people, gracious, loving, faithful partners who support the ministry, and then hundreds of radio stations, English stations, Spanish stations, and Spanish language stations. And people have invested in this ministry so that we could translate the messages now into Chinese, Arabic, French, Portuguese, and now we're working on Russian, Farsi, and Romanian translations that will go out over the internet. So what is expanding is the translation work here, and we're really thrilled about that. As you think about year-end giving, you have a couple of days—well, actually maybe one more day— you want to make a year-end gift to help us carry this forward in multiple languages.

That is a great project. We're in the middle of it, and your gift can go directly to making that a reality as we endeavor to reach the world in more languages this year than we ever have in the past. Pray for the ministry of grace to you, and stand with us as the Lord enables you. Yes, friend, if you'd like to partner with us in taking God's word and the life-changing truth of the gospel to people from North America to Europe to Asia and beyond, make a tax-deductible donation when you get in touch today. You can mail your year-end donation postmarked by December 31st to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412, or donate at our website, gty.org. Pastors, business people, homemakers, students, people from all walks of life are taking the biblical principles they learn from these broadcasts and using them as they serve their churches, lead their families, and evangelize the people they know. That's the kind of personal and powerful ministry you make possible when you give.

Again, to make a tax-deductible donation for 2020, simply mail a check postmarked by December 31st, or go online and make a credit card donation before midnight on December 31st. Our address again, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. And our web address, gty.org. One more time, that's gty.org. And a special thanks if you're one of our Grace partners. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on NRB-TV, that's DirecTV Channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be back here tomorrow as John shows you how to experience victory in spiritual warfare. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.