Motivating a Spiritual Son

Can I give you a little insight into great men of God? They have a sense of mission that expands beyond their own life. They are not driven by ambition, they are driven by mission. They are not driven by their own sense of success or their own need to attain.

They are consumed by the bigger picture. And it was far more important to Paul that the work go on than that his life go on. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Jonathan Edwards was the leading voice in the Great Awakening, one of history's greatest revivals, and it was when Edwards was a teenager, years before he became a pastor and a theologian, that he wrote this, Resolved that I will do what I think to be most to God's glory, whatever difficulties I meet with, and no matter how great they are. How can you live with that kind of commitment and bring glory to God, even if it leads to trials and ridicule and persecution?

John MacArthur's going to help with that today. He's beginning a series titled Unashamed, designed to help you live with an unwavering faith. Well, John, you're beginning this study with a lesson on spiritual leadership. So as we get started, let me ask you this. What motivates you in your ministry?

What are you charged up about in this, your 55th year leading grace church and leading this outreach that we call Grace to You? Well, I've always been driven by the same dominating reality, and that is my view of Scripture. I am convinced beyond equivocation that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is the truth, that every word is true, and that my responsibility in the world is to proclaim every word of divine truth and to proclaim it accurately. I've always been driven by the truth. I love the truth. I study the truth. I preach the truth. It is my passion to live the truth.

Most of my conversations are around the truth of God. That's my life, to proclaim the truth. To be, of course, unashamed of the truth, to confront the world with the truth, to fight sin with the truth, to proclaim with boldness the truth, that's my calling. The boldness that I have in my life, the courage to preach the truth, the strong desire to live the truth, is really all because I understand that it is the truth, the truth of God.

As I look at my ministry, that's the beginning and the end and the center of everything I do. And if you have that kind of passion for the truth, you will be unashamed. And that's going to be our new study, unashamed, how to be bold about the truth and about the Lord Jesus Christ who is the subject of divine truth. Stay tuned for the first lesson on motivating a spiritual son.

Yes, do stay here, friend. And if you long to be unashamed of Christ in your home or at your school or in your career, you don't want to miss a single lesson from this study. And with that, here's John. Open your Bible to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and we'll begin by looking at the first five verses as Paul introduces this wonderful letter to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy. Reading the text, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you even as I recall your tears so that I may be filled with joy.

For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and I am sure that it is in you as well. Let me give you a little look at his circumstances, okay? In 64 A.D., Nero who was an insane madman torched the city of Rome. He set a match to the place and burned it. Not wanting to bear the public shame and the public wrath for that kind of thing, he pushed it off on this group called Christians and blamed them for the burning of the city of Rome. As a result of that, an avalanche of animosity broke out against the believers in Jesus Christ and it was in the radiating of that animosity out of Rome that permeated the whole Roman Empire that finally caught the Apostle Paul eventually and caused him to be arrested because he was the leading spokesman for the Christian faith. He was then taken back to Rome and dropped into the hole in the ground at the Mamertine prison. And so he is there because of a furious wave of persecution.

The leading Christians have been arrested, many have been executed and Paul, of course, is next. As we come to 2 Timothy, that's the scene in which we find the Apostle Paul sitting in the dungeon. His liberty of a few years has now ended and he is back in the most difficult incarceration of his life. And in that dungeon, he sets out to write the last letter he ever wrote. So it's probably about 67 AD or so as he takes up pen or dictates to Luke and this is what's on his heart.

He's coming to the end of his life. He says in chapter 4, I have finished the course. I fought the good fight. I've kept the faith.

I'm ready to be offered. This is it and I want to say this before I go. This is his swan song. This is the final will and testament of the Apostle Paul.

These are his last words and as such, we should listen to them with great, great concern and commitment. Apparently, Nero had wanted to kill him already one time but something had stopped Nero and he had been spared from the lions of death, as it were. If for no other reason God spared him then in order that he might write this marvelous second epistle that we might be blessed by it. Now he chooses to write to Timothy of all the people that he might have written to, of all the churches that he might have written to, he chooses to write to Timothy and he writes to Timothy because Timothy is the key to carrying on the work. So what he is doing in 2 Timothy is passing the torch, passing the baton, passing the mantle, as it were, of the prophet. We believe that at the time of the writing of this, Timothy is still in Ephesus.

He's been there three to five years. Sometime between when Paul left him there and when Paul writes this letter, he has seen him. Perhaps he went back to Ephesus and they met there but Timothy is still in Ephesus. We believe that because of the reference to Ephesus in chapter 118 and also a further reference to Ephesus in chapter 4 verse 12 where he says, I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. In other words, I know you're coming to be with me so I sent Tychicus to take over for you there. So we assume from that that he is still at Ephesus. It's been three to five years trying to set that church right.

It's been a very, very difficult time. But Paul wants to be sure Timothy carries on the work. He at this particular time is in his upper 60s, maybe 66 or 67 years of age and having spent his life now ready to go to be with the Lord, having accomplished all that God wanted him to accomplish, Timothy is in his upper 30s, maybe 36 or 37 and carries the brunt of responsibility for ministry and extending the kingdom in the next generation. Timothy is his child in the faith, his protege, his student, his disciple.

And Timothy faces tough times, persecution, hostility, animosity, resentment to the message, resistance to the truth, and it will not be easy. Can I give you a little insight into great men of God? They have a sense of mission that expands beyond their own life. They are not driven by ambition, they are driven by mission. They are not driven by their own sense of success or their own need to attain.

They are consumed by the bigger picture. And it was far more important to Paul that the work go on than that his life go on. He does not write his last letter and say, woe is me, look what's happened.

All of this I have given and now I have nothing. He does not write and castigate the people who have refused to show their heads and identify with him. He writes to carry on the mission because great men of God are moved not by personal comfort, personal success, personal attainment, but by mission. They see themselves as engulfed in something beyond their own lifetime and the desire of his heart is to pass the baton and carry on the work and build up a new generation of godly men. The specific instruction to Timothy is with that in regard. Timothy, you'll have to do this to carry on the work and the work must carry on.

The work that Jesus began must carry on until Jesus comes and finishes it Himself. Now with that as a general understanding, his instruction to Timothy begins in chapter 1 verse 6 and runs all the way to the end of the epistle. The whole epistle is basically instruction to Timothy for how Timothy is to carry on the mission, the work, the mandate, the kingdom ministry. It's clear.

It's direct. It is demanding exhortation. It calls for the best that Timothy or any other man or woman of God has to offer. But what you have to understand beneath the surface is it is very impassioned because Paul is very concerned.

Listen carefully. He is concerned not only about the mission itself, but about the state of Timothy. He's concerned about Timothy, knows him well, knows his strengths, knows his weaknesses. And there are hints in this epistle that Timothy was at a weak point in his life.

Let me show them to you. Chapter 1 verse 7. Paul says, God has not given us a spirit of timidity. In other words, God didn't make us timorous, timid, cowardly. God didn't make us weak and vacillating. Could it be that under the stress and duress of trying to turn that Ephesian church around and battle those Ephesian errorists and those false teaching elders in the church and the ungodliness that had reached in and gotten so deeply entrenched there? Could it be that Timothy was becoming intimidated?

Could it be that because he couldn't answer every argument and win every situation, he was beginning to weaken? And Paul says to him, if you have a spirit of cowardice or timid nature, that doesn't come from God. God has given us power, love, and discipline. Verse 8, he goes a step further. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Could it be that Timothy actually, because of the persecution which was growing and growing as it radiated out from Rome, was becoming ashamed to speak of Christ? And it says, or of me, his prisoner, didn't want to be identified with Paul who was now known as the leading Christian exponent and was incarcerated for that very thing.

Timothy, could it be, did not want to be so identified because it might have threatened his own freedom? In verse 8 he says, be willing to join with me in suffering for the gospel. Could it be that Timothy was thinking about doing all he could to avoid suffering and therefore compromising his ministry? In verse 13 he goes even further of chapter 1 and says, retain the standard of sound words which you heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Could it be that Timothy might let go of truth? Could it be that he might alter his theology so as not to offend somebody? Verse 14, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure, that means the Scripture, the truth, the gospel which is entrusted to you. Could it be that he was letting go of the very basics, that he was willing to alter his theology?

We don't know how far Timothy had gone. We don't want to assume that he had gone far, but any movement at all toward weakness elicited out of Paul the greatest amount of concern and expression in this epistle. Also we find in chapter 2, several places, verse 15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth. He enjoins on him not to let go of his disciplined study in God's truth so that he can handle it accurately. Could it be that Timothy was even letting that slip? In verse 16 he says, avoid the worldly and empty chatter that leads to further ungodliness.

It's talk that spreads like gangrene. Could it be that Timothy was spending a little too much time listening to the false philosophies of his age and being engulfed and influenced by them? Verse 22, flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness. Verse 24, foolish and ignorant speculations refuse. Verse 24, don't be quarrelsome. Verse 25, be gentle. Basic things that may have spoken directly to a weakening of the spiritual character of Timothy against the heat of the present persecution. So in chapter 3, verse 1, he says to him, realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

You have to expect it, Timothy. Verse 11, persecution, suffering such as happened to me at Antioch should be expected. Verse 12, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Verse 14, continue in the things you've learned and become convinced of, knowing who you learned them from.

So you see here that Paul's concern is that Timothy's letting things slip. In chapter 4, verse 1, the most strong command of the whole epistle, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing in His Kingdom. Preach the Word. Preach the Word.

That's what you're to do. Down in verse 5, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Fulfill your ministry sums the whole thing up. Timothy, do what you've been called and gifted to do. Do what God has committed you to do. Do what the elders laid on hands for you to do. Do your ministry. It could all be summed up in chapter 2, verse 1. You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

What a statement. Timothy, be strong. Could it be that he was in danger of being weak? I think Paul assumes that possibility.

That's the picture. On the one hand, the strong, almost indomitable spirit, the Apostle Paul in a stinking dungeon in the city of Rome at the end of his life waiting to have his head chopped off, writes a final letter to a disciple out there who is to be his protege, his successor, the one to carry on the Kingdom mission and the Kingdom work who is apparently vacillating to some degree and weakening under the pressure of all that's going on around him. And Paul writes to him to infuse strength into him to carry on the Kingdom work. Now I don't need to say to you, because you already know it, but I say it for emphasis, that this is a passage and an epistle that gets to my heart because I believe in great measure God has called me into the world to carry on a Kingdom ministry and to raise up other godly men who will carry it on after me. So I identify with the heart of the Apostle Paul in this regard. God had laid upon him the tremendous burden that he needed to have a successor who carried on the work. Frankly, few works survived the death of the great men who begin them, but the Christian ministry does.

The baton is passed from generation to generation to generation. And Paul writes with that goal in mind. Now as I said, in chapter 1 verse 6 he starts the instruction. But before the instruction comes the motivation. And verses 1 to 5 is a wonderful motivation passage to Timothy.

In fact, it's wonderful for all of us. You're going to see how practical it is. Here is how to motivate a spiritual son. You're discipling your children. You're discipling someone in the faith in Christ. You're teaching someone.

You're leading someone toward maturity in Jesus Christ. Here are the elements that motivate them. And they're not explicitly mentioned here.

They're implicitly in the text of what Paul says, but they're so rich and I think so easily visible as to almost jump off the page to enhance our understanding. Number one, if Timothy is going to respond, he has to be motivated, right? That's the assumption. The first motivation is authority.

The first motivation is authority. In other words, if I'm going to motivate Timothy, Paul says, he's got to understand that he doesn't have an option, that I rank over him, that I have the leverage of authority. So he introduces himself this way in verses 1 and 2.

Look at it. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus to Timothy, my beloved son. Paul, he says, means little in the Greek. His Hebrew name was Saul. He probably had both names all his life since he was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, but born in a Hellenistic or Greek culture, he bore both names. He is called by the name of Saul, his Hebrew name, until Acts 13, 9 when he launches into his ministry to the Gentiles and from then on he's only called Paul. And that's how we know him. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus.

That's the fact of his authority. He was called by Christ Jesus to be an apostle. The word apostle, God sent one, an emissary, an ambassador, an envoy. Jesus Christ Himself had called him to be his representative. In Acts 9, do you remember at his conversion when he met with Ananias afterward, it says in verse 15, the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. In other words, Christ said, he is my chosen vessel sent by me. He had three visions of Christ, the first one on the Damascus Road and every time he gave his testimony in Acts 22 and again in Acts 26, he reiterated the fact that the Lord said he was chosen as a vessel to represent Christ in the extension of the gospel. So the fact of his authority, he was sent by Christ. He stood in the place of Christ.

He spoke the word of Christ. Now some critics of Scripture have wanted to deny Pauline authorship of this epistle. They want to say that Paul didn't write it.

There's no reason to say that other than some people would rather criticize the Bible than believe it. But they attack it and one of the attacks is that if this was really an intimate letter from a sad, broken-hearted, sorrowing soldier who is now in a dungeon to his dear, beloved son in the faith whom he loves with all his heart, it wouldn't start out with all of that technical data about his apostleship because Timothy didn't need the verification of that. Timothy knew he was an apostle who was sent by the Lord Jesus Christ who came because of the will of God to proclaim the promise of life in Christ Jesus. He knew all of that and so if this were really Paul to Timothy, heart to heart, man to man, loving mentor to loving student, it wouldn't be there.

But such thinking really shows the shallowness of such a critical approach. It is a very, very simple axiom and you ought to get it and remember it, very simple. Intimacy never precludes authority.

Basic. Intimacy never precludes authority. Think of it as a father. Try dealing with your children strictly on the basis of friendship and not authority. Try it at work. Try to deal with your employees strictly on the basis of friendship and not authority.

It can't happen. Intimacy, friendship, fellowship, love, bond, all of that does not preclude authority. And so Paul introduces himself with an introduction that carries weight.

And then verse 2, to Timothy, my beloved son. There's the intimacy, there's the love, there's the bonding together, but it never precludes the authority. As a father, in raising my children, I want them to know I love them. I want to have an intimate relationship with them. I want there to be an unbreakable bond between the two of us.

I want it to be deep and refreshing and rich and enduring, but no time does it ever preclude the fact that I'm their father and that God has given me the authority in their life. Some have thought these two don't go together, but they do. There can be a deep spiritual bond, a love from man to man like a father and a son between Paul and Timothy, but Paul is still the one who speaks the Word of God. And in any discipling relationship, when you speak the Word of God, you go into a command mode. Do you understand that? That's part of it. This letter is loaded with imperatives.

I didn't count all of them, but there are many of them. For example, here are some of the imperatives in this epistle. It's directly from Paul to Timothy.

These are commands. Kindle afresh the gift of God. Do not be ashamed of the Lord. Retain the standard. Guard the treasure. Be strong and trust to faithful men. Suffer hardship. Remember Jesus Christ. Remind them.

Solemnly charge them. Be diligent. Avoid worldly empty chatter. Flee youthful lusts.

Refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. Continue in the things you've learned. Preach the Word. Be ready. Reprove, rebuke, exhort.

Be sober in all things. And that's the way it goes. They're all commands and they all presuppose authority. Paul never gives that over. He has rank when he speaks for God. And I tell you, beloved, this applies in the discipling process in the home and whatever area of discipling you're involved, we can become friends, we can share fellowship, we can enjoy love, but we never relinquish authority. And authority is not based upon our personal abilities, our human position. It's based upon the fact that we speak the Word of God. The means, the will of God. Notice verse 1 again, by the will of God. He was the apostle of Jesus Christ because that was God's will. He was sovereignly chosen by the Thelema, the deep desire of God.

It was God's desire that He be the man sent by Christ. So He comes with orders under the divine God of the universe. When He speaks then, He's not making suggestions. He's not rubbing up alongside Timothy and saying, let me give you a little friendly advice, pal.

What He is doing is commanding Him. So He says, I am Paul. The fact of my authority is I am an apostle of Christ Jesus. The means of that authority is because of the will of God and the purpose of that authority according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

What does that mean? It means that my message is to preach the promise of eternal life that comes in Christ Jesus. And in Christ Jesus is a favorite Pauline phrase meaning union with Him, that marvelous reality that the sinner becomes one with Christ in his death, his resurrection, and his ongoing life. So Paul says, the purpose of my calling is to preach the wonderful promise of eternal life provided in Christ Jesus. Jesus said, I am come that you might have what?

Life. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. It is the gospel of life, spiritual life, eternal life. Christ, it says in Colossians 3, 4, who is our life.

I love that statement. So He comes then, sent by Christ by the will of God, commissioned to preach the gospel of eternal life in Christ Jesus. That's Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson is part of his study titled, Unashamed. Keep in mind you can download this study free of charge in MP3 and transcript format from our website, gty.org, or if it's better for you, a 4CD album is also available for a reasonable price. Contact us today. To download the MP3s and the transcripts for free or to purchase a 4CD album, go to our website, gty.org. You can also call our customer service line at 800-55-GRACE and that number translates to 800-554-7223.

Again, the title of the study to ask for, Unashamed. And while you're at gty.org, make sure to download the Grace to You Study Bible app if you haven't done that already. The free app gives you the full text of Scripture and it also provides instant access to thousands of Bible study tools including study guides and blog articles and sermons, all of them related to whatever passage you're studying. And for a reasonable price, you can download the notes from the MacArthur Study Bible, about 25,000 detailed notes covering virtually every passage of Scripture. To get the Study Bible app, visit gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week with Grace to You and be here tomorrow as John shows you what could be keeping you from telling your friends and neighbors how they can be saved and it might surprise you. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.