Standing for The Gospel

Dr. Michael Yusef introducing Leading the Way Audio. While Paul appealing directly to his success at Timothy, he is writing to every one of us and he is appealing to the next generation and to this generation saying, don't sell out on biblical truth. Don't be embarrassed about the gospel. Don't be ashamed of the word of God.

Don't allude it to the point of unrecognition. Don't repackage the gospel to make it acceptable to the non-believers. Don't ever give up on the gospel truth, regardless of what names they might call you. As a young and zealous man, Paul's mission was to rid the world of Christianity. He believed that Christians were a threat to the heart of his world and faith, Judaism. But then the very Jesus that he fought against met him and transformed his life, igniting a passion to declare the gospel to the world. Today on Leading the Way, Dr. Yusef opens a letter that Paul wrote to Timothy with an encouragement to never give up when it comes to the truth of the gospel.

Listen with me now to Dr. Michael Yusef and his very challenging Leading the Way. The word shame or being ashamed has been turned upside down of recent years, right? Things that we used to be ashamed of, now we are proud of.

And we have parades to express our pride and things that we used to take pride in, now we're kind of embarrassed and ashamed of it and we keep quiet about it. And that's because our culture has departed from biblical definitions of shame and have produced instead its own definition. A prominent psychologist defines shame as a master emotion.

He said it is very difficult to get rid of, but I'm going to show you that he's wrong in a minute. Because the Bible portrays shame as an indicator of how we respond to sin. And that is why there is a healthy shame and there is an unhealthy shame. Healthy shame is what comes when we realize that we have violated our own conscience and that we can immediately turn to the Lord, confess and repent and receive forgiveness and restoration.

That's healthy shame. The unhealthy shame or guilt is when a person rejects himself or herself. And they think that, well, I didn't just fail, but I am a failure. And they begin to convince themselves that they are failures. And they condemn themselves. They condemn themselves as failures. They condemn themselves as they'll never measure up, they'll never.

And sometimes that kind of emotion has developed in an early childhood as a result of things like abuse, whether it be physical abuse or emotional abuse or sexual abuse. That unhealthy shame comes from believing a lie. And a lie comes from Satan. That unhealthy shame often leads to all sorts of overindulgence and leads all sorts of addictions. Why am I taking time to clear up this confusion? Because the Apostle Paul, as we're going to see in a moment, uses the term shame or being ashamed.

And it is of uttermost importance to understand what he's talking about. For example, the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians because there were some things going on in that church. He said, there are some shameful things that are taking place in the church.

It couldn't even be verbalized in words. In Romans chapter 1, he calls sexual perversion as shameful acts. But now we have departed from biblical authority in our Western culture.

Some pastors have now accepted these shameful acts as love. And if there is a message from the Word of God today, to the old and the young alike, to everyone in every generation, it is here in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 8 to 18. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 8 to 18. Please do not be ashamed of biblical truth. Please do not be ashamed of biblical morality.

Please do not be ashamed of the name calling that they call you. Do not be ashamed, please, for believing in what is good and godly. If I understand anything about 2 Timothy chapter 1, it is this. Shame is a child of fear.

I'm going to repeat this. Shame is a child of fear. Fear and shame belong to the same family. We saw in the last message verse 7 of chapter 1. And in verse 7 he says, for God had not given us the spirit of fear, but he has given us the spirit of love and self-control.

He immediately goes to the daughter of fear or the son of fear and talks about shame. In order to encourage the next generation to remain faithful, he is saying never, never, give up on biblical truth. Never be fearful to stand up for the truth.

Never go with the flow for the sake of popularity. He started letting Timothy know that the spirit of fear is not from God. And here he says, you need to be aware of the child of fear. And that's being ashamed of the truth. Being embarrassed about biblical truth.

Being, watering it down so that you don't get attacked. Please, you must understand that the Bible does not waste words. Had Timothy not being tempted to be ashamed of the gospel and ashamed of the prisoner of the gospel, the apostle Paul, had he not been tempted in that regard, Paul would not have told him not to be ashamed. Had the apostle Paul himself not experienced the temptation of being ashamed of the gospel, he would not have said in Romans chapter 1 verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. You don't think Jesus understood that temptation? You know our Lord Jesus himself did not understand that this is a big, big, big temptation.

Why else would have warned in Mark 8 38, remember Mark 8 38, if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, I will be ashamed of him before my Father in heaven and his holy angels. Beloved, let's get real. Every one of us care about the opinion of others, right? Some more than others. In fact, we care more than we're willing to admit it.

We all find it a whole lot easier to go with the flow than to swim upstream. We all prefer self-affirmation rather than self-examination. We all rather avoid witnessing for the fear of ridicule. Let's face it, none of us like suffering.

None of us enjoy suffering. Our Lord and Savior himself in Gethsemane said, Father, if there be some other way. Paul said, I prayed three times for God to remove the thorn in the flesh, whatever it was. And when the crunch came in Caiaphas' house, Peter said to a slave girl, when she said, you are one of his disciples, I said, who? Who? Me? Jesus? Who's Jesus?

No, no, not him. All my beloved friends, God's word tells us that sometimes suffering is part and parcel of our faithfulness to God, who is faithful to us. And furthermore, when the crunch comes and we begin to suffer for righteousness, we are not going to be alone.

He's never going to leave us alone. Remember, the worst thing they can do to me is what? Kill me?

That is a wonderful promotion. And that is why in verses 9 and 10, look at with me, verses 9 and 10, he's literally saying to Timothy, don't be afraid of death. Don't be afraid of death.

Why? Because he said God saved us and called us and brought us from death to life. But that's not all. He said, God will give us the power to not be afraid when that time comes. We need to understand this, that when God created Adam and Eve in the garden, he created them having dominion over fear.

But when disobedience set in, when God said don't do this and they did it and disobedience set in, what happened? Disobedience brought fear. And in that irrational fear, most fear is irrational. With that irrational fear, they thought, oh, they could hide from God.

They could hide from God. But on the cross, Jesus restored that dominion over fear to everyone who believed in him. Therefore, fear has no place in the life of the brothers and the sisters of Jesus. Can I get an amen?

How come? Well, you need to know that Jesus has given us authority over principalities and powers and authority of the darkness. If you're ashamed of the gospel, it's because of fear.

Then you do not know or you have not yet learned how to take authority over these powers, authorities, and principalities. We say how? Because on the cross, Jesus disarmed the principalities and the authorities and the powers, and he alone rendered them useless against his children. Because by his death, the Apostle Paul said, he abolished death. By his death, he abolished death.

Can you say that with me? By his death, he abolished death. And in abolishing death, he abolished fear.

Fear of death. Ah, to be sure, not many of us probably will end their life in a dungeon like the Apostle Paul. Not many of us are going to be beheaded for our faith, but some of us may lose friends over our stand for the truth. Some of us may be passed for promotion because of righteousness and standing for biblical morality. Some of us will lose business deals because of our righteousness in Christ. Some of us may be snubbed by neighbors and by others because we take a stand. For righteousness sake, some of us, very few of us may lose their life.

But the only thing that will happen when my life is snuffed out is I'm going to move from the basement to the penthouse. Have you ever asked yourself the question, why? Why do they hate us so much? Why do they hate Christ believers? What is it that makes biblical faith an irritant and a cause of anger to the non-believers? What about the believers?

What about the infallibility of the word of God that just want them to reject us? The answer actually is much simpler than you think. It's very simple.

Here it is. God saves us by grace, not by works. He forgives us all our sins when we repent and come to Him.

The moment we recognize the gravity of sin in our lives and our need for forgiveness, God by His grace and mercy forgives us, transforms us and justifies us. You say, well, what's the problem with that? Why should this irritate them? Why should this upset them? Why does this make the non-believers angry? Well, because the natural mind, the non-believing mind does not want to admit the gravity of sin. They want to take pride in it. They don't want to confess it and repent of it. They want to brag about it. The natural non-believing mind does not want to admit their inability to save themselves.

What's this business? Somebody dies 2,000 years ago that he can save me. No, I saved myself. And that is why today many a preacher, and that's really where my burden is, many a preacher would rather preach man's virtue than Christ's cross. They reverse.

Today they substitute one for the other. They really do. Ah, you. If you have good thoughts, good things happen to you. If you say it, it'll be yours. It's all you, you, you, you. You have the power. You can do anything you want to do.

Right. As somebody says, there's some things you can't do. You can't kiss your elbow. You lick the back of your neck.

There's some things you can't do. Why do they substitute the cross of Christ for man's virtue? Oh, they want to be liked. They just want to be liked. They want to be accepted.

They want to be admired by the non-believing world. Question. What is Timothy to do?

What are you and I to do? Verse 13, we are to guard the truth. We are to follow it literally.

Why? Because it is God's blueprints. The word translated pattern here, pattern of sound words, it's really the same word used for architectural design, what we call the blueprints. I want you to think of them. If the builder decides, well, there's just too many columns in the design, in the architectural design, what will happen? You know what will happen. The building sooner or later, it may stay for a while, but it's going to collapse. If the blueprint of godly living, we begin to tamper with it and change it at whim. Sooner or later, there's going to be spiritual starvation on the inside, and sooner or later, the appetite for the word of God would have gone, and sooner or later, the desire to fellowship with other believers would wither, and sooner or later, a critical spirit is going to sit in, and like a house of card, it will collapse.

That is why the dying apostle is looking to death in the eye. It could have been days, no more than weeks, when he was writing those words, and he's pleading with the next generation, please, please, follow the pattern of sound words, all of it. Please follow the blueprints. Please do not try to improve on it. Please don't try to deviate from it.

Please don't try to modify it. Above all, don't you ever give up or get tired of upholding it regardless of the suffering, regardless of the price, regardless of the temporary cost. Salvation is by grace alone. We receive it as a gift from God when we repent of our sins.

But daily growing in Christ, what the theologian calls sanctification of growing more like Christ every day, growing in a spiritual sense, that's a partnership between you and the Holy Spirit, between me and the Holy Spirit, between us and the Holy Spirit, children of Jesus, listen to me. You and I seek him, and he is found. You and I knock, and he'll open the door. You and I call upon the Lord, and he will answer us. You and I walk with him, he walks with us. You and I delight ourselves in him and in his will, and he will give us the desire of our hearts.

You and I draw near to him, he'll draw near to us. And that is why Paul said, verse 12, I know, I know, this is knowing experientially, not theoretically, knowing experientially whom I have believed. I know experientially that he is able to keep me faithful. I know experientially that he is able to keep and guard the truth of the gospel. I know experientially that he can empower me to uphold unto the truth unmolested to the end. Question. What is Paul's burden?

Obviously, you see it right here in this chapter. His greatest burden as he is dying is that false teachers and false preachers have infiltrated the church. They infiltrated the church while he's still alive, just like they're infiltrating the church now. These false teachers and preachers, they are bent on corrupting the gospel.

They are determined to rob the church of its most and only priceless treasure that has been entrusted to us, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I know, say that with me, that I know he is able to protect it and keep it safe to the next generation until Jesus comes back. Remember, the burden of the Apostle Paul as he was facing death is that Timothy be an instrument in preventing the truth of the gospel to be corrupted. But he also is aware of Timothy's proclivity toward fear and intimidation. And so the great Apostle is advising Timothy, Timothy, you don't have to feel that you must carry that burden alone. Timothy, you don't have to feel that you can do this in your own strength. Timothy, you do not have to feel alone in carrying this awesome responsibility. Timothy, you need to ask God for help. Timothy, you need to be on your guard, but don't ever, ever, ever forget who upholds you as you uphold the truth. Timothy, be urgent in the task of holding on to the truth as you lean on God. It's clear from the last few verses of chapter 1, it's very clear that so many people in the church of Asia, remember Timothy was pastoring the church in Ephesus when he wrote him, when he received this letter from Paul.

He was in Asia, Paul was in Rome, and apparently the word got back to the Apostle Paul that there are some in the church of Jesus Christ in Asia just couldn't take the heat and opted to turn their backs on the truth. But thank God there are exceptions. As always, I thank God that there are many faithful knees have not bowed down to bow.

I thank God for them every day. Others sold out to the cultural demands and cultural conformity. Others have defected from the demands of the gospel. Others have opted for entertainment.

Others have opted for tickling the fancies. But as far as you are concerned Timothy, resolve to ground your confidence not in public opinion, but in Jesus the guardian and a guarantor of the gospel. And that is why Paul said, don't be afraid Timothy, don't be afraid.

God will never allow the light of the gospel to be extinguished completely. He is watching over it. God is making sure that he will preserve it. Oh, Timothy remember, remember that he is trustworthy. Remember that he is faithful. Remember that he will accomplish all things according to the counsel of his will. And so my friends, whatever you are, and whatever you're going through right now, you can trust Jesus, the faithful and true.

And you can trust him all the way, all the way until he takes you home and be with him for all of eternity. This is leading the way. If today's words have stirred the foundation of your faith, you can speak with one of our pastoral team members. Begin that conversation at ltw.org slash Jesus. Hey, did you realize that when you stand with leading the way, you become a part of bringing encouragement to those all around the world who are living out their faith in difficult areas?

It's true. You see, leading the way has teams in many locations where simply being a Christian runs against culture. Places where living as Christians brings danger, even death, abandoned by their families, dismissed by employers and communities.

These are people often with literally nowhere to go. But when you support leading the way, the international team is able to coordinate assistance with partner churches and organizations in the area to minister to the physical and to the emotional and to the spiritual needs of brothers and sisters through expansive discipleship. Here's how you can learn more. Call us 866-626-4356.

That's 866-626-4356. Or you can always go online, ltw.org, ltw.org. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef, passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth around the world. Connect with us through our YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, and all of our social media networks. Learn more at ltw.org.