I Endure All Things #2

So this morning, we're going to be picking back up where we left off last week in 2 Timothy. Last week, we got all the way through verse 8 of chapter 2, and this week we're going to make it our mission to get all the way through verse 9. In weeks to come, we'll probably take a little bigger chunks. It's not normal for me to preach from one verse, but these verses, as I've studied them, have great application for us in our lives here and now. Last week, we saw how Paul exhorted Timothy to remember Jesus Christ. As Timothy considered the suffering that would be required of him as a minister of the gospel, he was to remember Jesus Christ, not in his death, but in his resurrection, in his victory over the grave, so that Timothy would be strengthened to endure hardship, not this hardship or that hardship, but the hardship of living as a sinner in a fallen world, a hardship that endures until

The Lord calls us home out of this world. And so this is what Paul calls Timothy to remember when he looks on Jesus Christ. And it is what we need as well to remember that Jesus has conquered the grave and whatever suffering or hardships we endure in this life, however long they last, we serve a king and a savior and a redeemer who's overcome the grave, which apart from that, death would be the thing you would avoid at all costs. It would be the thing that you would spend your life trying to get away from. But as Christians, death has lost its sting and lost its bite. And so we no longer ought to fear death. This is what Paul is calling Timothy to do. That we would endure, that we might reign with him in the time. This is our sermon last week. This week we're going to be focusing, as I said, on verse 9. And as I was reading verse 9, this is just Paul saying that he's in prison as a criminal.

and that the word of God is not imprisoned. I couldn't help but thinking about all of the talks, particularly this last year and a half or so, surrounding the way Christians have been treated through COVID and all of the masks and now vaccines and lockdowns and all of these sorts of things. And there's been much, much talk about how it's been persecution that Christians would face. And it's quite a complex And it's not an easy thing for Christians to sort their way through. And what I mean by that is it's very difficult to sort out all of the facets of what faithfulness looks like, what it should look like. And I'm taking it for granted that as Christians, your desire is to be instructed in the ways of God and that you, in whatever circumstance you find yourselves, would want to know what faithfulness would look like. This last year and a half has been very difficult. It's been a sort of grinding process.

situation that has worn many of us out who may have started well and had time and energy perhaps. You get very tired of the next thing to fuss about and to be worried about and the next thing that comes out in the news cycle or from the CDC or from your favorite online preacher. And so this morning my goal is not to argue about whether this or that specific is right or wrong. But rather my goal is to spend our time considering how we as Christians should respond to difficulty, to hardship, to suffering. What it means for us to endure, to remember Jesus Christ, and to serve him when life is difficult, when things are hard. And so our text this morning is 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 8 to 13. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Remember Jesus Christ.

risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things, for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement, for if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we're faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So as I said, we're going to be starting paying our attention this morning to verse 9.

where Paul says that he is suffering hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprisoned. I want to start with the second phrase, and then we'll work back to the first. He starts by saying that the word of God is not imprisoned. And so he draws a distinction between himself and the word of God. He is imprisoned, but the word of God is not imprisoned, which means that the word of God, God's word, and really his purposes in this world, not one of them can be constrained or resisted by men, no matter what they do. Not one thing that God wants to happen can be thwarted by the anger or the wickedness of men. Now, why would that be important to us as Christians, to those who claim the name of Jesus Christ and endeavor to serve him with all of their heart? Well, it ought to be a comfort to us. What it means to us is that in our afflictions, as we suffer, we should take comfort knowing that

The God that we serve is, while we may suffer, his purposes will not be derailed. In our day and age, I think we think too individualistically. When we think of serving God, we think of how I'm supposed to serve God without regard or without proper regard, perhaps, for all of the men and women through centuries and centuries who've served God before us, that we're not the beginning. That we won't be the end, but that we are one small little part, one little stone in the building of God's kingdom that he's been at work doing for thousands and thousands of years. But too often we think of ourselves and we think only of our impact or the consequences that we will face. And we think, I have to win.

I have to be the one to cross the finish line. I have to be the one to accomplish the goal. You remember when David wanted to build a temple for the Lord. This was his desire. He loved God and he wanted to be the one to build, finally, a permanent house for God. And what did God say to him? He says, David, you're a man of bloodshed. And it would not be right for you to build me a house. But your son after you, he'll build me a house. And that would have been discouraging news for David, having loved God and served him with all of his heart. He's a man after God's own heart to be told, no, no, you're not going to get to do this thing. And there's a choice when we get those sorts of answers from the Lord. What are we going to do when we want something? And he says, no, no, that's not for you. Well, David sets us a very good example of how we ought to respond. Because we all possess the...

the capacity to look at a situation like that and say, God, if you won't have me do the thing for you that I want to do for you, then I won't do anything for you. But what does David do when the Lord says, no, no, you won't be the one to build the house for me? Do you remember what he does generally? He accumulates all of the materials. He says, well, here's the thing, and these are my words, not David's, but the gist of it is, I want to see the Lord's house built. And if it's not the Lord's will that I would build the house, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it as ready as possible for my son who is going to build the Lord's house. I'm going to gather all the materials for him. And that's what David did. He was content to have his place in history without his desire being met with his own hands. He was willing to work and to serve and to be faithful.

And to see God's will accomplished, even if he wasn't going to be the one to do it, even though it was at the top of his list of things he'd like to see done. David understood that he wasn't the beginning or the end of God's plan, but he was a part in the middle of it. The same is true of us. The same is true of Paul and of Timothy, right? Many thousands of years separate us. And yet we're all just in the middle of this building that God's doing. God's word will not be imprisoned. If we fail, if we die, if we suffer, we ought to take comfort in the fact that as we suffer and as we endure our trials and as we come to the end of our lives, now as I look out at you, there's precious few of us even over 50 years old.

And so it's not collectively on our hearts and minds as a congregation, the end of life. Not many of us are looking back over the decades and saying, this isn't as far as I thought I'd make it. We haven't had to go on and look at our lives and say, the Lord said 60, and if you're blessed, 70 years, and think, there's only so much time left. And what will I do with that? Because all that I thought I would do in my life, I'm not going to get done yet. Many of us are on the other end of life, still with ambitions and desires for all that we'll accomplish, all that we'll be, all that we'll get done. And so in that way, it's harder for us as younger people to think and to consider the ways of God because we have so much of our lives ahead of us, we presume, more ahead of us than behind us at least. And yet those who suffer, who've suffered long especially, are those who will be comforted and girded up by these words that even as they suffer,

The word of God is not imprisoned. That the things that they endure in their life, the hardships that they face, even down to death, don't keep God from doing what he's willed and purposed to do in his word. To redeem the world, to bring salvation to all men. And so these words, that the word of God is not imprisoned, ought to be a comfort to us. But more than a comfort to us in affliction, or in addition to that, this verse shows us what our primary concern ought to be. As Christians, our primary concern ought to be that the word of God be fulfilled. What good would it be if God spoke something and said, these are the glories and the good things to come, and his people heard those words and went, it doesn't mean that much to me. That's not really what's important to me. What's more important to me are the details of my own lives and the circumstances that I find myself in. If we think that way.

Only of ourselves and of our own trials and our own burdens. We don't value the word of God and we don't value his will being accomplished as we should. And so when trials come and when we face hardships, we won't have the comfort that these verses provide for us. They won't take root in our hearts the way that we need them to. And so for these words to be a comfort to us, for these words to strengthen us, We have to understand our place, and we have to understand our size, and we have to understand God's purpose. I mean, Paul writes these words from prison, awaiting his execution. Why would he write these words? He had enemies. All of the Jews were after him and wanted to kill him. He's in Rome, imprisoned by the heathen or by the unbelievers, about to be put to death. What's going to be said of him in his message?

He's actually fighting for something when he says these words. What he's saying, in effect, is, though I'm in prison, the things that I believe and the things that I've worked for aren't affected or aren't harmed in any way by my current circumstance. God's purpose and his will is greater and will continue apace wherever I find myself, in prison, alive, dead, or free. He says these words to help Timothy and to help us after Timothy be reminded that when men suffer and when they endure hardship for the sake of the gospel, when they behave like Christians to their own bodily harm, God's plan hasn't been set off course. They haven't been foolish. Have you ever seen someone suffer and thought, well, they didn't do it right. If they had done it right, whatever it is, they wouldn't be suffering. It's deep down in our bones to think that when we see suffering, we just attribute failure to them. And we say, the reason you suffer is because you failed. And so Paul sits in prison, and how easy would it be to say, the reason you're in prison is because you failed. You weren't able to figure out how to say the things you wanted to say without getting yourself in trouble. But many times, faithfulness to God puts you right in the crosshairs of trouble.

I mean, consider John the Baptist when he's before Herod. How can he say, you're committing adultery, it's not right for you to have your brother's wife without getting in trouble? Is there any way of nuancing that message such that he doesn't lose his head? There's not. There was no way for him to speak that truth to that man without suffering for it. And we ought not to look at men's faithfulness and say, because suffering is the result of it, you've done wrong. Paul lived with a clean conscience. When he spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he says, my conscience is clean. I am innocent of the blood of all men because I've not shrunk back from declaring to anything that was profitable, both public and private, for a period of three and a half years.

My conscience is clean. I've warned, I've instructed, I've rebuked, I've encouraged. I've been faithful to God in my work and my calling as an apostle. And so the comfort he has is he sits in prison and the comfort that he's trying to extend to Timothy and to us is that our work is not in vain if it produces suffering or even death. God's word is not some weak thing that men can get a hold of and tear down and eradicate the earth from. If Satan could have his way, Calvin says if Satan could have his way, he would rid the earth of every utterance of Jesus' name, if he could. But since the earth doesn't belong to Satan, but rather to God, he sets about trying to frustrate perpetually the plans of God on this earth. And one of the ways he does that is through causing God's people to suffer, as Paul is now, or was at this time. But that suffering doesn't curtail

The proclamation of the word of God. We read in our scripture lesson this morning that God's word is powerful, that it will do what he purposes it for it to do, that there's not some sort of limiting factor or governor on it. In Isaiah 55, 11, we read and we'll read again, my word, which goes forth from my mouth, will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. That's a powerful thing for God to say. We don't have the strength in us to say those sorts of things. We can have purposes and we can have desires and we can have plans and we can work very, very hard in our pursuit of them. But how easy is it for them to be thwarted and cast aside, never to be picked up again? How easy is it for us to fail? To start out and to purpose to do something only to find that our desires are not attainable because we don't have the strength of,

will or the strength of wealth or whatever it is we need to see them through. God's not constrained by these things. His word's not constrained. He says, it will not return to me empty. It will not come back to me without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter from which I sent it. And so Paul would take comfort in these words as he sits in prison, that the word of God, while he's imprisoned, the word of God is not imprisoned. It will accomplish exactly what God intended it to. And so Paul's job, if he were a football player, is to get this first down. It's to move the ball forward this far. And then God will put in a new player, and he'll take the ball the next distance. And so the word of God is not imprisoned. The word of God continued to bear fruit even as Paul was imprisoned. It's a strange thing. And time's gone by in our country. When there was a threat to our country from abroad, some other bad guy,

What would men do if there was a war to be had? You'd think that if there's trouble and danger, everyone would run and hide and try to get away from it. And I grant you that there are those who would do such things. But many men do the exact opposite. They see that there's a fight, and they look around, and they look at their wife and their children and their mothers and their sisters, and they say, you know, I'm not willing for them to suffer. I'm going to go fight to protect them. They say, well, the danger's great. And they say, yeah, but I'm going to go and I'm going to fight so that the people I love can be cared for and provided for. This is the sort of thing that motivates men deep down inside of them. That when they see suffering and hardship, when there's something they care about and there's something that they're willing to give their life for, they will go give their life for it. And that's all Paul's doing here. Not to make it sound like it's some small thing or some easy thing, but Paul's a man who loves God.

who's been saved by God, and who's willing to give his life to see God's purposes and his kingdom grow and be built. And he calls us to the same thing. So when Jesus calls somebody to come to him and to follow him, he is calling us to come and to die. That is his call. He who would lose his life for my sake will gain it, but he who keeps his life will lose it. But those who lose their lives in service to Jesus Christ will have done well. And they will receive a crown of glory when their king comes and rewards them for their faithfulness. Now, what does that have to do with our day? Well, there's a lot of talk and a lot of, there's just a lot of being said about how Christians are processing through vaccinations and through masks and through lockdowns. And much of it is unfair in the way that they represent those who don't agree with them.

And as I said earlier, my goal here is not to take a side and to say this is exactly what's right and this is exactly what's wrong. But I can tell you what I haven't heard is those who are willing to suffer or those who are afraid of suffering. You know, some of us are saying, oh, there's a fight, I'm going to go fight. Or some of us say, oh, there's a fight, I'm going to run and hide. What I've seen through and through is that whichever cause people are promoting, They think that God is obligated to make them a victor, to vindicate their cause and to vindicate them. And I'm afraid that they're not preparing their hearts or the hearts of the people that follow them for the suffering that they say is coming. I've heard many, many cries of, well, that's not fair. Well, that's oppressive. Well, you don't have the authority to say that, whether we're talking to the civil magistrates or whether we're talking to the church.

or whomever we're saying, and say, you can't say that, you can't do that, you can't require that. And I'm left thinking, how many of us understand that suffering is part and parcel of our lives as Christians? I think we've grown too accustomed in America to thinking that just because we want something, we'll have it. And if we resist, we'll win. Or if we comply, we'll win. that somehow we just have to figure out the right strategy to get what we want. But I don't find in Scripture that being the counsel that we receive. We might take John MacArthur in California and him keeping his church open as an example. And this is not to say he did right or did wrong or what have you. If his elders and he acted according to the dictates of their conscience, then I commend them to you for it. And I say good for them.

But to say that everyone would do well to do the exact same thing I think is a very dangerous and foolish thing to say to men. Because the first thing Jesus calls us to do when we're to come to him is he calls us to count the cost of following him. And it was very common in Jesus' life for the people who followed him to follow him precisely because they saw his power and his ability to resurrect the dead, to give the blind sight, to heal the lame. And they thought, he has come. to bring victory to us and to liberate us from the hand of our oppressors. So they followed him. But when they realized that that's not what he came to do, even his closest disciples abandoned him. When he rebuked Peter and picked the man's ear up and put it back on, and he says, if I wanted to kill them, I could. I could call down angels from heaven and just wipe them out. What are you doing?

Peter runs and he flees. And I'm afraid that too many of us don't realize that there's a cost to following Jesus and that his purpose in us following him is not that we would win all the time. How can we read what Paul's suffering here, what Timothy's suffering here, what even our Lord Jesus Christ suffered while he was on earth and come away thinking, we're going to win this life and we're going to be standing at the end of our lives on the podium with a medal. At the end of all things, yes. But before that, often no. And so Jesus calls us to count the cost. Paul was told what the cost would be. The Lord said, I will teach him what it will cost him. I'll teach him how much he has to suffer for my name's sake. And so we as Christians, when we face persecution and we think something nasty is coming down the pipe, something we don't like, something that's a threat to us and our way of life or the well-being of those that we love and care about,

We ought to count the cost carefully of our response. You guys are familiar when you go to buy expensive things, what's the one thing they don't tell you up front? The price, right? They don't tell you how much it costs. It's part of their sales tactic. They're not going to tell you, oh, that thing you want. They'll tell you about the great financing deals and they'll tell you about all the fancy. tricks that it can do. They can tell you how it will make you popular or cool or make your life easier or whatever it is you're desiring. They'll tell you it can do that. And what they're doing is building interest before they say, and it only costs. It's always nice to know the price of things. It's always nice to know the price of things because the price does constrain us sometimes. Have you ever wanted something and you went, I can't afford it. I would love to have it. It would be nice, but I can't afford it.

The wise man looks at that and says, because I can't afford it, I can't have it. It's very good for him to count the cost. We do this with our own money, or we should. We ought to do the same thing with our souls and with suffering. We ought to count the cost and see if we're able to endure the payments, if you will. With regard to following Jesus Christ, we're to count the cost. We're not to hide the cost. Realizing that if you show the cost to some people, if you say, this is what it will cost you to follow Jesus Christ, it will turn some away. They'll say, no, I'm not paying for that. At this point, my soul and my eternal salvation, it's not worth that payment to me. But the truth is, if you lie to somebody about the true cost of following Jesus Christ, what do you think will happen when they have to start making the payments?

Well, they'll default just like anybody else would. If they bought something, they couldn't have money to pay for it. And so the cost is inevitable of following Jesus Christ. We would do well to remember it ahead of time and to consider it before we make the purchase. And so when we talk about how Christians ought to respond and what faithfulness looks like, we have to consider seriously the cost of our decisions. If you decided you were going to build a house, and you thought, I don't want to mess around with a permit for this, or I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to put my septic field in and I'm just going to cover it up because the rain's coming, but my inspection's not until next week. You've counted a cost and you've taken a risk. What's the risk? The risk is that when the inspector comes, he says, dig it up. And you say, well, I put it in all right. It's according to code. And he says, no, no, dig it up.

And the thought you ought to have before you cover the thing back over is, can I afford to dig it up? And if I can't afford to dig it up, I should not cover it up in the first place. And so if we were to go back to John MacArthur and his church as an example, I think they were uniquely suited to be able to endure the pressures that they would face as a church. Both in the court of public opinion and financially. I think they were much better suited to endure those things. Oh, we're going to fine you this much. Okay. They've got the money to do it. Where another church may well not have the money to do it. And you think, well, that's not godly. And I say, no, no, no. That's counting the cost. Because Jesus warns in very specific terms against starting something you're, as a Christian, not able to finish. He says, what will happen is you'll be mocked and made fun of.

because you didn't count the cost. With regard to counting the cost of following Jesus, he gives two examples. The first is of a king building a castle. He says, can you afford it? If you can't afford it, don't do it. The other one, he says, is you're going to battle. Can your thousand overcome their 10,000? And what does the king do when he counts the cost and realizes he can't overcome their 10,000? It says he sends a delegation. To ask for terms of peace. Now, that's a nice way of saying he surrendered. He submitted. He said, we're going to lose. What I'm going to do is become their subjects without all the bloodshed first. He chose not to go to battle because he knew that he couldn't win the battle. And this is the example Jesus gives to us for counting the cost. We have to consider the likelihood of our resistance. I'll give you some examples. Women being put into the draft.

Okay? This is a new thing that's come out in the last month or so in our society. And every Christian ought to, their hair ought to stand up in the back of their neck, and you ought to have a visceral response that says, no, no, I'm not okay with my daughters going to fight and to die in our military. That's not okay. That ought to be your response. But that's not counting the cost of what you're going to do if the day comes when your daughter is actually faces the draft, what will you do? It's very easy to say, well, they can come and take her, and I'll stand here with my guns. Okay, well, that's one way to go. What do you think will happen? What may happen is they may well come dispatch with you and take your daughter. That's one likely outcome that you have to deal with. Is it the only one? No. But there is a cost to be counted. I remember arguing with a guy one time about how to handle an intruder in your house.

And how houses were set up. And what I told him was, you know, I've got a wife and a number of kids. And this is the way our house is set up. And this is where our bedrooms are. And if someone breaks into my house, what I will do is stay holed up in our bedroom. And unless they come down the hall and get to our family, they can do whatever they want in the rest of the house. And this young man was just appalled. And he's like, that's your house. You've got to defend it. That's not right what they're doing. And I said, true. But he could kill me.

And then where would my family be? Would my wife and children be happier with me dead because I defended our belongings in the living room and in the kitchen and in the dining room? Would they say, we're glad dad died or he's paralyzed because, or he's in prison because he got convicted of manslaughter? Would they say that was the right thing for dad to do? And the man's like, that's what you're supposed to do. That's what being a man is. And I said, no, no, no, you haven't counted the cost of what might happen. And you do well to count the cost. Now, why am I going on and on and on about counting the cost? It's not even in our passage, is it? Paul says, I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal. Well, the reason I'm talking about it is because we think that justice will prevail in this world. And that's not the same thing as counting the cost. Counting the cost has to take into account the fact that justice doesn't always prevail. And when you count the cost, you have to take into account the fact that

If injustice carries the day, then what will happen? We ought not to presume on God that in this life, he will always bring about justice and what's right here and now. It's his will, oftentimes, that he reserves that judgment until the final judgment. Paul suffers and is imprisoned as a criminal. Why does he say as a criminal? Is he a criminal named among thieves and murderers and robbers? Is Paul like them? No. Paul is not a criminal. He has not done wrong. And yet he suffers and will die. And so when we count the cost, we ought to take into account the fact that what we think is right, well, certainly the judge will rule justly. Why would we presume that the judge will rule justly? I mean, it would be good if the judge would rule justly. And we ought to pray and work to the end that the judge rule justly. But what do you do if the judge doesn't rule justly?

You suffer the consequences of an unjust decision. You become a casualty of sin in this world. And so there are times when counting the cost and realizing what may well come down the pipe to us ought not always to stir us up to fight, but ought to make us wise about how we should behave and consider whether or not we have the strength and the will and the resources. to see it through to the end and to pay what will be required of us. You know, one of the reasons I think Paul says in Corinthians that he wishes that all men were even as he was is because they have a greater propensity to suffer for the gospel without having the cost be so high. Paul's able to live. Paul's able to suffer. Paul's able to die. And he's not leaving a wife and children behind.

But a minister or an apostle who has a wife and children has to live in the tension of figuring out how to provide for and be faithful to his family and how and where to suffer when the word of God's being maligned. And it's a tension that they have to live in and they have to sort out and it's hard. And so Paul says, I wish that all were even as I am. Because a married man has to be concerned about how to care for and how to please his wife, how to make sure she's provided for. He's going to have a more complex cost-benefit analysis when he's working out what he should do and why. And so Paul's imprisoned as a criminal. He's content to be imprisoned as a criminal. He's comforted that the word of God's not imprisoned alongside of him, that his work is not in vain. He argues even that my work has not been in vain, even though I'm in prison and even though I'm going to die. And his death was an unjust death.

But he writes in Romans 8, he says, just as it is written, for your sake, speaking of the Lord, for your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered, but in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. And so Paul understands his suffering as simply a part of God's plan. And his desire is not to avoid his suffering. It's not to complain about his suffering. His concern is not about himself. His concern is about the kingdom of God being built. And so even as he suffers unjustly, his concern lies with Timothy and with his church and with his people, which we'll see next week when he comes and he says, I suffer all these things for the sake of the chosen. That's his whole mind and his whole concern is the kingdom of God being built and suffering is a byproduct of his faithfulness. And so when you look around and you see things that you,

are very undesirable to you. Whether that's the second round of mask mandates or whether that's vaccines to be able to go here or there or whatever. I'm not here to say you shouldn't have an opinion about it. I'm not here to say that there's no godliness in opposing those things. But I am here to say, count the cost of the things you want and whether or not you're able to pay for the things that you want. Not necessarily financially, but are you able to endure them and to serve God? Are you content to suffer for your conscience' sake? I do see men say, well, if I have to lose my job, then I'll lose my job. And I say, okay, I don't mind. I know people who have purpose in their mind that if their employer says you have to have a vaccine to work here, they will not comply. And as a result, they'll lose their job, their livelihood, their insurance, whatever is attached to their job. They realize,

they're choosing for that that's going to go away and that they're not going to get unemployment as a result. They know all that. And they say, that's my choice. And I say, that's fine if that's your choice, as long as you can afford for that to be your choice. If you lose your house as a result of that choice, I don't know that you've counted the cost of your decision. That's hard. Because we'd like to make it very spiritual. As though the practical outcomes of our choices don't matter, but they do matter. And these are the things that we have to count. And so if we're to suffer, and our consciences are such that we say, I will suffer these things. If I'm going to end up losing my job, if I'm going to not be able to go here, or whatever the consequences are, then we ought to receive those things with joy. Because Hebrews tells us that they joyfully endured the seizure of their property.

That in Acts, it says that the apostles considered it all joy when they were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus' namesake. And so if you're going to suffer, if you're going to count the cost, if you're going to be on the path to imprisonment as Paul was, a good litmus test or measure is whether or not it's, if you have any joy in it. And if there's no joy in it, and you don't, and you're not satisfied with it as you're your service to God, then you ought to think long and hard about why it is you're doing what you're doing if it's not in service of Jesus Christ. Many of us have preferences. Many of us have strong desires, myself included. And so this sermon first is, I think to myself, and I think, how willing are you to suffer and endure things that are just according to your preferences? And I say, I've got a pretty high tolerance for that. But the problem is the thing that always comes along with it is grumbling and complaining.

and not joy. And so I find that my preferences and my desires to see them satisfied are a hindrance to my service to God. When it may well have been better for me to simply say, I'm going to submit. The cost to my own soul of grumbling and complaining is too high, and I'm too weak to endure it. Better for me to follow along and to do the thing, because I don't have the strength to receive it with joy. Do we want God's kingdom to be built? And the question is, how will it best be built? What can we do in our daily lives, in our homes, in our workplaces, with our children and their schools? What can we do to build God's kingdom? You can't be too idealistic about this. We don't live in, we're not afforded the comforts of being real idealists about this.

what can you do? And you think, well, it's not much. And I say, well, if all you can do is a little, then be sure to do a little. But our concern as Christians ought not actually to be, first and foremost, what our Constitution says we're entitled to. Realizing that there are things in there that are unalienable rights, inalienable, that honor in. Rights that come from God. And then there are rights in there that are given to us, that are predicated on the word of God, but are given to us from the hand of men. We ought not to fight harder for our rights as an American than we do for our responsibilities as Christians. Amen. And so, these are tough times we live in. Paul lived in a tough time as a man in prison about to die. And his concern was for God's people and his word. May it be that our concerns would be the same as his. And that if we're called to suffer,

we would suffer with joy so that his kingdom would be built and that we would have done our part in it, even if we don't see the culmination of it, that we've done our part of it. That our kids would someday tell our grandkids and our great-grandkids, your granddad was a faithful man. Your grandma, she loved Jesus. And this is what she did because she loved him. And now she's with him. Let's pray. Father, when it comes down to it, Suffering is a scary thing to us. And it's our natural inclination to avoid it. And not only to avoid it, but to justify our aversion to it as though our weakness is actually our strength. Father, we confess to you that we are weak and that we need your strength to shore us up. Help us to count the cost of our decisions. Help us to be wise. Help us to desire as Paul desired and Timothy desired and as many of our forefathers have desired, that your kingdom would go forth in power, that it would be built. Please use us to this end. Help us to behave and to process and to sacrifice and to fight as Christians before we fight as Americans. To the extent that those are the same calling, we pray, Father, that you would give us success and that you would be merciful and that you would bring our land to repentance.

and to faith in Jesus Christ. And we pray this knowing that it's your church that you'll use as an instrument to this end. And so we pray that you'd help us in this work. Help us not to think too highly of ourselves. Help us not to set goals that are unattainable for ourselves. Help us first to be faithful with our children. Help us to be faithful in our neighborhoods and with our coworkers and with our friends. And those that we meet at the park or at the grocery store, Father, help us to speak words of truth that are sane, that are wise, and that give you glory and draw attention to your mercies and your word, not us. We thank you that your word is not imprisoned. And we thank you that it goes forth to accomplish the purpose for which you have sent it and that our own weaknesses and the resistance that we offer and the resistance that the wicked offer don't slow it down in any way.

Father, we pray that you would preserve us until the day when we stand before you in glory. We pray that you would give us strength to endure, to persevere, gird us up, and help us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.