Suffer Hardship With Me #2

From the beginning of this passage, I want to note to you that Paul is speaking to Timothy and calling Timothy specifically as a minister of the word to join him in suffering. And yet when he singles out Timothy or ministers as principal in this work, I don't want you to think that somehow you've been left to watch from the sidelines and to cheer on those who are called to suffer. But rather, I'd want you to see that this is a call not just to ministers, but it's most especially to them. but it really is to all Christians. In another place, Paul says, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. And so this call, even though it's primarily aimed in its immediate context as that Timothy, a minister, it has application to you as people, as Christian people who love and serve Jesus Christ.

And so as we look at our text this morning, there will probably be times where I talk about a minister's work and there will be times when I talk about your responsibilities as people and what we're called to do. Either way, the applications go both directions. They are for me as a minister as well as for you as a congregant, as a son of Jesus and a brother of Jesus Christ, a son of our Father. And so in verse 3, Paul calls Timothy to suffer hardship with me. Suffer hardship with me. The ministry... Timothy's job, his life, could be defined as hardship, one after another. Hardship and sorrow and suffering all lined up and waiting for him to endure. Now why is suffering, why is hardship what marks ministry? Well, it's because a minister's job is to spend his life fighting against Satan's stratagems, his ploys, his plans.

To destroy him and his people. And so to be a minister is to be a commander, a general, a leader in the fight. It's not a peacetime calling. It's a wartime calling. And so Satan's aim is to destroy you. And a minister's calling is to do battle, to win you. As though you were a prize or a crown. His work is to win you over with the Lord's help for Christ. That's a pastor's job. It's hard work. It goes on with lots of hurdles and roadblocks and difficulties, yet this is his work. People often get angry with their shepherds. People are unwilling to have them do their work without much sorrow and grief. In just a few chapters, Paul warns Timothy, he says, there will come a time when the people will not endure sound teaching.

but rather will acquire for themselves teachers in accordance with their own will. And so Paul, in writing to Timothy, suffer hardship with me is simply saying, you, man of God, you, Christian man or woman, will have to suffer hardship if you'll be counted among the faithful followers of Jesus Christ. There is no escaping it. There's no skirting the issue. There's no cheering on from the sidelines. It is your work and it's my work that we would suffer hardship along with Paul for the sake of Jesus Christ because of our love for him. And so when Paul calls Timothy to suffer hardship, and I say to you that the people are often the cause of that hardship, the first thing you ought to learn is not to make your elders' jobs harder than they already are. To be a pastor, an elder, a deacon, is to take on responsibility in God's house.

to step to the front of the battle and say, I'll lead and you follow. And so your call is to get behind the leaders who lead you into this battle for your souls and to be good soldiers behind them, not giving them grief, not lagging behind in love or zeal or effort, but keeping pace and doing it happily as unto the Lord. In Hebrews 13, it says, And so Paul calls Timothy to the work of leading, shepherding, caring for the souls of the people under his charge and his care. In the Lord's strength, be faithful in ministering to them and to the people. Because this isn't simply a private letter written to Timothy. We ought to hear that our responsibility is to not make their work a grief. Because it won't go well for us if we do. Living as a Christian, let alone being a minister of the gospel, is a difficult task. And only God can provide the strength for us to endure and to persevere in it. And so Paul calls Timothy to suffer hardship.

He calls him to be a faithful shepherd and not to run away when things get hard. Now, in your life, when you suffer and when things are hard, it's a common temptation for you and for me. It's a common temptation for you or me when we face hardship to want to run away and escape it. And yet this is not what God provides for us. Now, I'm not saying that Paul was wrong when he... escaped persecution and got lowered down in a basket. There are times when we ought to flee. But when Paul fled, it wasn't that he fled God's service or that he said, I don't want any more suffering, so I'm going to run away. When Paul fled, he fled so that he could continue to minister. He didn't run away and say, enough, I hang up my hat, I retire. He fled and went to the next city and continued to do the same thing that he had been doing previously.

And so this is the model and the example of suffering hardship that Paul sets for us that all of us are responsible to aspire to. When things get hard, it's not time for us to hang up our Christian faith and say, this is too much and too difficult. The vows that we take at baptism, the faith that we profess as we come into his church is a lifelong commitment and one that we're not able to just walk away from without consequence when life is difficult. Jesus warns in John 10 about good shepherds and hirelings, and he says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. The wolf snatches them and scatters them. He, the hired hand, flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. And so you want people leading you in your Christian life who are

concerned about you. You want elders who take seriously their responsibility to keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. You want men watching over you who, when difficulty comes and hardship arises and suffering ensues, who don't fold and say, battle for another day, not today. This is what it means to suffer hardship. This is what Paul is calling Timothy to, not to turn away, not to quit when the opposition arises. And these words are spoken literally from a man who is about to die for his ministry in Jesus' name. He says, join with me, son, and don't fear this end that I'm about to face or anything that comes before it. So it's quite a high calling, suffering hardship. It's not a simple thing or a little thing or something that we do.

here and there. It's a lifelong calling and a difficult one that God calls us to and supplies strength for us to be able to endure. Then Paul tells him how to do this, how to suffer hardship in three ways. First, as a good soldier. For no soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who has enlisted him as a soldier. Now as an enlisted man, there are very few of us here who have experienced this, being in the military, understanding what it means to have when you get up and where you go and when you go and how you go and how long you go and what you'll do when you get there all dictated to you. Many of us don't have this experience. Nick does. As I look out, I don't know that I know of any other men who've been in active military service.

But you all know that when men come out of the service, they have difficulty assimilating back into civilian life. Why is that? I think at least in part the reason that they have difficulty, one of the honorable reasons, is that they have learned a lesson that many of us have never learned, which is what it means to have your whole life aimed in one direction, accomplishing the will of your commanding officer. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed, whenever it is you go to bed, you're an owned man who is to do the things that you're told to do. And many of the things that they're told to do are not desirable for them. They wouldn't choose to do them on their own. They come with great difficulty, both physically and mentally. And yet the men come out and they go, where is the vision? Where is the command?

that I had when I was in the service, when I was a soldier, when we took pride in doing our jobs well and accomplishing our mission. This is the work or the metaphor example, first one that Paul gives us about how we're to suffer hardship. A soldier's first and only objective is to do what he is told to do. It's obedience. And so Timothy's first priority, and yours and my first priority as those enlisted in God's army is to be faithful to God at every turn, every minute of the day, for our whole lives. What would a soldier say if hardship and sorrow or difficulties got into the way of them accomplishing their mission? Is a good soldier looking for a reason to turn his back to his enemy? No.

A good soldier's not looking for a reason to turn his back. He's looking for a way to go forward, realizing that there's danger and there's risk, even to his own life. His intention is to die in service of the mission that his commanding officer has set him on. And Paul says the same is true of us as Christians. And so those who've experienced this in their own lives through military service and training have a leg up, so to speak, on the rest of us because they've had at least a time in their life where, All of the affairs of this world that Paul warns against for soldiers have been set aside. All of their family's responsibilities, all of their home responsibilities have found their place beneath their work as a soldier. If a man were serving in the reserves and he was called up to duty, what are the circumstances of him being called up to duty? The answer is it doesn't really matter what circumstances he's under if he's called up for duty.

His work, his family, his pregnant wife, whatever he has going on, finds its place further down the list than his obligation of when and where he's supposed to report for active duty. That's what it means to be a soldier. And we understand when we think of it for a second, there's a real cost to being a soldier. That it's hard work. That it brings definition to your life. Not all of our lives will be spent in active duty. Maybe the reserves is a good way for us to think about it. That there are times when the reserve soldier is called up and everything else has to be set aside. But most of his life, he's able to maintain his training and he's able to go about his normal life. But when he gets the call, he reports for duty. And his intention is to serve his calling and his master without any distraction. That's what Paul calls Timothy to do here.

in being a good soldier the same is true in our christian lives much of our lives god is merciful to us in allowing us to go about our daily affairs to live a normal life if you will but if he comes and he calls on us to be faithful soldiers in his army in a particular instance paul says to us suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of jesus christ Don't be entangled in the affairs of everyday life. You know that when Jesus came to one of his disciples and said, follow me, and the disciple said to him, let me bury my father. What was Jesus' response to him? Okay, report to duty in three days. Follow me and let the dead bury the dead. I want you to get a sense of what Paul's saying here when he says not to be entangled in the affairs of everyday life. Jesus was giving us an example of that when he called his disciple.

saying, let the dead bury the dead. If you'll follow me, it's of the utmost importance, and I will only accept right now. But my father needs to be buried now. In another place, Jesus says, he who loves father or brother or mother or wife more than me is not worthy of me. And he's getting at this idea, this concept, of what a soldier's priorities are. That your priority must first, without any fuzzy edges, Be to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if he calls you away from your normal life as a reserve soldier, if you will, you're to come. And you're to come right now. And there are times in our lives where what's required of us by Jesus Christ must be done now. And there's no time to prepare or to make an alternate plan or to tie up the loose ends. Our obedience is required of us this very day.

And so Paul says, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier. Consider as of first importance your obedience to Jesus Christ and that it takes precedence over absolutely every square inch of your life. Every square inch. There's not a place where you can say, well, if I did that, the cost would be too high to my family, to my livelihood, to my future, to everything I've worked for my whole life. This is what it means to be a Christian, not just a minister, but a Christian. And it makes you want to pray that you'll be able to live in peace, right? Where Paul tells us in Philippians, pray that you'll be able to live peaceful, quiet lives. Why might you want to pray to live a peaceful, quiet life? Well, because of the cost of being called up for active duty and serving Jesus Christ.

if it's not the Lord's will that in some time in your life you're not going to live a peaceful, quiet life, but rather be called up to active service as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, then your first and only priority is to serve him with all of your heart, without ever looking back. That's what it means to be a good soldier. Then Paul goes on and he says, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. And so second to obedience, Timothy is supposed to go about his work. You and I are supposed to go about our work as though we want to and expect to win. It's very easy to look around and to be discouraged as a Christian in our society. And you go, it's full of sin and wickedness, and Christians are being cornered, if you will. And the pressure is mounting against the Christian.

And what I'm convinced is that much of these thoughts, the fruit of all of these sorts of thoughts, simply produces in us a deflation. We have less interest in serving God because we go, well, it's futile and it's in vain. My fighting and my effort and my suffering will not produce victory, but rather loss. It's also very easy to think that suffering and hardship are indications of failure in your life. How easy would it be to believe that you failed to love your neighbor because you spoke of God's truth? You can hear it in your own ears. Well, you didn't speak lovingly, and that's not merciful. And that's not kind. And you don't understand their plight. And you think, well, I must have failed to love then. And you might think, if you're foolish, you may think, no, no, I wouldn't think that. And I think, well, when it happens, you'll be surprised then. Because you will think that you failed.

You will wonder if you failed. You will get defensive when someone questions whether you failed because you yourselves are not sure that you didn't. And so this is a danger that all of us face, interpreting our hardships and our sorrows and our trials as indications of failure, when many times they're the opposite. If you're suffering for sin, then what I'm saying doesn't apply to you. But if you're suffering for faithfulness and for godliness sake, then you've done well. And your suffering should not exacerbate It should not be exacerbated by thoughts of doing wrong. When Peter and the other apostles were going about and they were preaching, and the Pharisees described it as filling Jerusalem with your teaching, the Pharisees arrested them, brought them in, and are going, what are we going to do with these guys? They're upsetting everything we've worked for. And Gamaliel comes and he says, you know, we've seen this kind of stuff before.

And if this is the work of men, it'll fizzle out on its own. And he gives a couple of examples. And then he says, but if this is the work of God, if God is with these men, you won't be able to overthrow it. And his counsel is basically, leave them alone. Don't get into things that are above your ability to navigate. And so they purpose in themselves what they're going to do. They decide, well, what we'll do is we'll flog them. We'll beat them. And will instruct them again not to teach in Jesus' name. And so Peter and the disciples are beaten for their work. And then they're released. They're not killed. They're released. And what does the scripture say about them after they were released? After being told that they were sinning, that they were wrong, that they were opposing the work of God by their preaching and by their teaching. In Acts 5.41 it says, So they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing.

rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name. These men are given to us as an example of what it means to compete according to the rules, those who expect to win. And when they suffered for their faithfulness, they didn't go, oh no, I must have done wrong. It goes right on after that and says, and they went right back to preaching and teaching. And then it says, and the number of disciples was steadily increasing. And so their work was bearing fruit. They expected victory. They pursued it. Now, am I telling you that if you're faithful to God, you'll see victory in your day? I'd be a fool to tell you that. After all, the man writing this very letter is about to die. And can we call that victory? Well, it depends on how you define victory. If you're prone to think too highly of yourself and to think that you have more strength in you than you really do,

then you're liable to misdefine victory and think that you're going to see all of your desires and all of your expectations and all of the work that you do bear good fruit in your lifetime for you to see. But the testimony of Scripture and of history is that many of the most faithful men never saw the fruit of their good work, but that the generations that followed, delighted in their work, were the result of it. And so we need to understand victory not as though we personally will win the battles that we face. Sometimes our battles, in the course of them, God will free us from them and release us from them through our own deaths. And so victory is not, I will die at a good old age in peace with no trouble. But rather, victory is defined as that our cause and the thing that we fight and that we labor and that we suffer for will win.

And so victory in this context is dependent not on us, but on God. And this is why Paul calls Timothy just before this to identify men who would come after him to continue to carry the torch, the baton, the gospel forward. Because Timothy's life had a shelf life. There was only going to be so much of Timothy, just as there was only so much of Paul. And there will only be so much of us. And so death is not, even a death. directly related, as Paul's was, to the proclamation of the gospel, is not an indication of a loss, but of a victory. What is death but our entrance into glory? And so if we think individually about victory, it will lead to us failing personally. The Olympics are going on right now, and I'd ask you, I'm not here to talk about Simone Biles, I'm happy to afterwards, but not now. What really matters to the countries when the Olympics are over?

Is it the personal victories? No. What is it that matters? Which country got the most medals altogether? Any country could have a gold medal athlete, and they would celebrate it. But at the end of the day, their country will not be remembered as being elite or supreme, even if they had one great athlete. The countries that will be remembered and marked as the best, those who are victorious, will be those who have accumulated the most medals. The same could be said on a track team. When I was in high school, I did not run track. I'm not a runner. But I did throw shot put and discus, and I was pretty good at it. I went to state for my senior year. My track team, however, was not filled with...

state qualifying athletes. There were a few of us. And I want to ask you, how much harder do you think I would throw in the finals if I knew that my team's overall victory rested on how I threw? Would I be motivated? Surely. Well, if that's true, then wouldn't the converse also be true? That if I thought that my team was going to lose no matter what I did, that I would be less motivated? And isn't that true for us as Christians? That if we think that our cause and our work and our labor and our suffering are in vain and a losing effort, won't we be discouraged from suffering hardship? And the answer is yes. And so Paul says, if anyone competes as an athlete, if anyone lives as a Christian, He does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. Now I tell you that victory belongs to the Lord. And if you're on his team, in his time, you will reign. Paul says as much later on in this book. If we die with him, we will reign with him. And so our heart's desire ought to be that God's kingdom would grow, that we would be faithful, and that we would be assured in the process

that our desires will be met, even if not in our own lifetimes, they will come to fruition because God is the commander of this army. And the benefit, the joy of being a Christian and running the race and competing according to the rules is that there is not one crown to be distributed amongst the rest of us, but all who compete as athletes, all who live as Christians and are faithful will receive a crown. and be welcome into the joy of their master, provided that they competed according to the rules. And so don't think that you know better than God how to live as a Christian, how better to speak his truth, how better to communicate his law or his expectations or his judgment or his mercy than he does. We don't. And so as Christians, we ought to compete in this life according to the rules that are set before us.

seeking after a prize that all who are victorious will receive. The third example that Paul gives us is of a hardworking farmer. He says the hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. And so first, we had a soldier, a good soldier, whose aim and goal in suffering was obeying his master. And second, we have an athlete whose aim and goal is to win the prize, to be victorious. And now we have a farmer whose aim and goal, his harvest, that he would reap some of what he's sown. Not that he would reap all of what he's sown, but that he would reap some of it, that he would reap his share of the work he's done. The first thing to note about this farmer is that not all farmers are good farmers. Some people are farmers and they don't have a crop to show for their land. Paul describes this farmer as a hardworking farmer. And so what Paul is saying, in effect, is that hard work

is what produces a crop. Without it, without hard work, there won't be a crop. I've got a friend, we're friends with the people that own Anderson Orchard. Their kids go to school with our kids. And so we were out there last fall, and they were telling us what percentage of their apples they lost because of a late frost. And I want to think they lost like a third or maybe half of their apples, which is pretty significant, right? So I was talking to someone that works out there just this past week, and I was asking how it was going. They said, well, this year is worse than last year. This year we lost either two-thirds or three-quarters of them. And you go, that's like, you realize the people who own that orchard, that's their livelihood. That's how they put food on their tables, by selling apples. So when you lose three-quarters of your crop, half of your crop the year before, what are you supposed to do?

As a farmer, what's a good, hardworking farmer do when that's what happens? Grumble and complain and fuss and moan and kick the dirt? No. They buy apples. And they buy blueberries. And they buy peaches. And they buy all the stuff that they didn't have to grow of their own. They go out and find it somewhere else. That's what it means for them to be hardworking farmers. Because which one of us wants to go to the orchard in the fall and have them go, Glad you're here. We don't have any apples for you. Yeah, right? You're going to go to that orchard next year? No. They have to go to work. When their crop fails, they have to work harder. That's what a hardworking farmer does. When he loses his crop to the frost or he loses his crop to the bugs or the contract at work falls through, what he does is go to work, redoubles his efforts, and says, I'm working for a harvest.

And I want my portion of that harvest. And so what he does is he works harder. And there are some years that even with hard work, there isn't as much to show at the end of it. His share is less. This shouldn't discourage us. You might think, well, then the toil is in vain. The work is not worth it. Again, we're discouraged at the prospect of suffering hardship. Far from it. We shouldn't be discouraged by these sorts of things. Instead, these things should stir us up to cry out to God all the more. to bless our efforts so that our toil isn't in vain. Unless the Lord builds the house, they who labor, labor in vain. And so our prayer ought to be the same as the hardworking farmers, that our toil would not be in vain, but that the Lord would bless it and that we would see and hold in our hands some of the good fruit of our labor. And so when you work and when you face adversity and when you suffer, cry out to God and ask him to help you just like a hardworking farmer does and go to work and work harder.

That's what it means to suffer or to endure hardship. Nothing in our society will tell you that when you face adversity, you need to trust God more and demonstrate your faith in him by redoubling your efforts. We live in a world that would feel sorry for you and say, you poor thing, you shouldn't have to work harder. But the Bible tells us that the hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. And so the question to you is when suffering comes, do you want your share of crops? Do you want a harvest or are you content to go without and wait for someone else or something else to meet your need? Suffer hardship as a hardworking farmer who deserves to be the first in receiving his share of his crops. Those who don't work hard when adversity comes ought not to be the beneficiaries of those that do. It's not greedy or selfish or a love of money.

to desire to have your portion of what you worked hard for. You can be greedy and keep too much and build yourself bigger barns to be sure. But you as Christians ought to work expecting a harvest. And when hardship comes, you shouldn't let it turn you off of planting and growing and cultivating a crop for harvest. And so the principle then of this third example is that your portion of glory and reward in the kingdom of heaven corresponds with the intensity with which you pursue it and what adversities you're willing to endure and persevere through along the way. I said earlier that you may not find victory in your day, and that's true, but you ought to expect to see the fruit of your labors, either good or bad. You will see them in your life. Seek after God and produce a good fruit, a good harvest, a plentiful crop. Part of that crop will happen within you. I want you to consider what happens to the hardworking farmer when he loses his crop. I want you to see that simply as the Lord's discipline of him. Because that's what it is. It's his discipleship. This is his lesson in Christ's school. And so the hardship that this good farmer, this hardworking farmer, reaps is a harvest of righteousness. And it's the result of the suffering.

not the result of escaping the suffering. In Hebrews 10, 12, we read that he, speaking of the Lord, disciples us for our good or disciplines us. I always think disciple because we like discipleship, but we don't like discipline. But really, they're the same thing. He disciplines us for our good. He takes away the good farmer's crop so that he'll work harder and rely on God more so that we may share his holiness. And so part of the harvest that that man will enjoy. that good farmer will enjoy as a harvest of righteousness. He will become more holy and more useful to his master because of his suffering and because of his hardship. And so this fruit happens in our own lives. When we think of a good farmer, we think what makes him a good farmer? Is it simply his ability to produce more corn or more beans or more whatever it is he produces? No. Technology can teach you how to produce a good harvest.

That doesn't make you a good farmer. A good farmer is a hardworking man who has headlights on his tractor because he's out plowing when it's not raining, whether that's at noon in the day or whether that's at 2 a.m. in the morning. He's out doing his work, plowing and planting. And so as we suffer hardship, we ought to be looking for the good that it will produce for us and in us because this is God's way with us to make us more holy. If we were given a choice to choose something that was difficult, but would make us more holy or immediate comfort, our weakness would dictate that we would almost always choose the comfort and the ease. Who would choose the difficult path, the hard path, and say, please, give me more of that? I remember a godly pastor telling me one time, after he had gone through a very difficult season of life with his children, he said, God broke me down.

And my wife and I have grown more in that season of life than we've grown in our whole lives. And we praise God for it. And we ask that we never would have another season like that again. But if God gives us another season like that, Lord, give us the strength to bear it. And so God's kind way with us is to give us suffering that we can't avoid, that require us to cry out to him for help and for strength, because we don't have it in ourselves to do it. And this is his way of making us more holy. and sharing his holiness with us. So what's the application? Well, it seems to me that the whole sermon's been application. Very simply, suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Suffer hardship as an athlete competing according to the rules who expects to win a prize for it. And suffer hardship as a good farmer who expects to reap what he's sown in this life, not just in the life to come.

Don't become short-sighted. Don't give in to your fears or your simple lusts and temptations that give you joy for just a moment. Pray that God would allow you to live peaceful lives, but determine within yourselves that if your life's not to be peaceful and that there are to be storms and trials, that you will endure them for the Lord's sake and the strength that he provides, seeking to turn a profit for him every day. Let's pray. Father, there is rest stored up for us in heaven. eternal rest where we'll be free from the toil and the trial and the suffering of this life. Yet not one of us have entered into that rest yet, Father. And so we toil and we spin and we work and we endure hardship and we're tempted by various sins, chief of which when we face suffering and sorrow, we're tempted to quit, to throw in the towel, to curse you, to be angry. Father, forgive us for the ways that we've

given into our weakness and strengthen us. Renew our zeal and our steadfastness. Preserve us through whatever trials you allow into our lives that we might, having been trained by discipline, share your holiness and produce a harvest of righteousness. Help us to encourage each other when we suffer and when we struggle. Please strengthen us to do your will and help us to see a good work, a good fruit. of our labors. We can plant, Father, and we can water, but we look to you to cause growth. If you don't cause growth, then our labor is in vain. It is not our desire that our labors would be in vain. And so as we pursue faithfulness and holiness and obedience, as we repent and seek to live by faith, we ask, Father, that you would be true to your word.

meeting us in our weaknesses, giving us strength and bearing a good fruit, not just for us to enjoy, but for you to be glorified by. We ask these things in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.