I Endure All Things #3

So the last two weeks, we've been reading this chunk of Scripture, 2 Timothy 2, 8-13, and we've looked at verses 8 and 9, respectively, the last couple of weeks. And so this week, we're going to be picking up the rest of it, and we'll be focusing on verses 10-13, just a word about why I was thinking about the way that I do Scripture and sermons. And the reason that I tend to take bigger chunks like this and then preach through them over the course of a couple weeks is so that we can keep in front of us the context of what's going on. I think you lose some of that, or at least it's harder to remember. If I were just to preach on verse 8, you'd go, okay, what came before and what comes after, or just on verse 9. I think it's helpful for us to take a little bit bigger chunks and to see more of, Paul's argument as he's making it and as he's trying to stir us up. That's why we've been taking bigger chunks and then working our way through them slowly over the course of a couple of weeks. The other benefit I've found, at least in my own life, is it helps me to memorize bigger passages of Scripture or get them in my mind so it's not just one verse kind of floating around somewhere. It's in its context and we hear it read and we consider it for a longer period of time. You get to look at it for weeks on end instead of...

just for 45 minutes. So I think there's benefit in it. I hope it's helpful to you. As I said, we'll be focusing on verses 10 to 13 today, and then next week we'll be moving on. In these verses, Paul shows Timothy the benefits of suffering along with the Lord, and he also offers a warning as he resolves this issue of suffering and how he ought to do it, why Timothy should suffer. He ends it with a warning. And it's a helpful warning, a needful warning, not just to Timothy, but also to us as we consider the hardships that we might face as we serve the Lord. And so our text is 2 Timothy 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 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 are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So we're going to be focusing in on, like I said, on verse 10, which starts out, for this reason. And if we didn't have the preceding verses, you might wonder, what reason? What is he enduring all things for? He tells us, finally, all of the suffering and all the hardship that Paul endures, even as he's about to die.

In Rome, for his ministry and his work for the gospel, he tells us why he's willing to suffer and why he's willing to die. And that really is the question in all of our hearts and our minds when something difficult comes up is, well, why should I do it? Why should I do it? And we ought not to think that we do hard things because they're the right things to do. It's true that duty ought to motivate us. And we ought to place a high priority on what God requires of us. But the truth is that God has made us. And he's made us with desires, some of them very strong. And so when he gives us work to do, he turns to those desires and he tries to tap into them. The things we love, the things we care about, the things that are of utmost importance to us.

He taps into those as motivational, things to motivate us to do what's right. And so I'd ask you, is there a personal benefit to suffering for the gospel? Does the Bible teach that you will benefit from suffering for the gospel? Of course there is. Is it a wrong thing for you to consider the benefit that you would receive if you suffer? Is that an ungodly thought? Not according to Paul. In Philippians 3, He says, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and may be found in him. Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.

and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death in order so that all of that is leading up to, this is why I count all things lost, in order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul says, I'm willing to lose my life and everything that's of value in this world so that I can go to heaven. He's just plain and he tells us, this is what motivates us. And as a Christian, a desire to be with your God and your Savior in heaven for all eternity ought to motivate you. And Paul tells us as much in this passage. Now, is he being selfish to say, I suffer because I want to derive the benefit of my suffering myself? Oh, he's not wrong for doing that. All of us are motivated in some ways by the benefits to us of our actions. Every one of us one day will stand before God and we'll receive our reward. Every one of us will. You'll stand before God and you won't get into heaven or be cast into hell based on your

how well you obeyed God. That's not what I'm saying here. What I am saying is God's people that he saves and makes them alive in Jesus Christ, they're going to stand before him, you and I, and we're going to give an account of everything that we've done and we're going to receive reward and glory based on how well we served him. So if we know that that's what's going to happen, that that's how God's ordered it, shouldn't that motivate us? Well, of course it should. If we value a reward in that day. And so I want to impress upon you from the very beginning that it's not wrong for you to think in terms of your own personal benefit with regard to suffering. The thing about our suffering or the work that we do, the obedience that we offer up to God, almost always involves our interactions with other people. And so when Paul suffers, he will receive a benefit because he's doing good to others.

And so he says to us, for this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen. He has in mind both a benefit to himself and a benefit to others. I have an old friend who's very good at business. And one of the things he always says is, whenever we make a deal in business, he says, what I want is everybody to be very happy with the deal. I want to be happy with what I'm getting, and I want the people I'm getting it from to be very happy with what they're getting. Which is contrary, if you think about it, to the way we expect most business transactions to go. You'd think in most business transactions, your desire would be to get what you want. And the other person, well, they have to look out for themselves and fend for themselves. You know, Luis, when you're selling a house, do you want just your buyer to be happy, or do you want the seller to be happy too? Right. Yeah, you want both sides happy.

You want the one spending money and the one receiving money both happy with what they get. And the same sort of principle is true in our lives as Christians. We ought to have concern both for our own benefit and we ought to have concern for the benefit of others. And so here Paul doesn't talk about his own benefit the way he does in Philippians, but he talks about the benefit of other people. I endure all these things for the sake of those who are chosen. What is he saying? He's saying, I'm willing to die for their sakes. He doesn't simply wish or want good things for God's people. He doesn't just hope that it will happen for them. He's willing himself to do all that he can for their benefit. And that really is what a sacrifice is, if you think about it. It's one thing if John and I, or we want to have a, I want something he has, and we have a transaction, and I give him some money, or I do this thing for him, and he...

gives me the thing I want. But it would be an entirely different thing for me to see that John has a need and for me to say, I'm going to supply his need from my resource. He's not going to pay for it. He's going to receive the benefit. That's an actual, that's a sacrifice for me. And so Paul's doing that with his own life. He's making a sacrifice for the sake of others. Have you ever received this kind of gift from somebody? I mean, we could all say, yes, if you're a Christian, I've received this sort of gift from the Lord. But in your own life, have you received gifts, apart from that, that were simply the fruit of other people seeing your need and sacrificing to meet your need? To their own loss. To their own hardship. Your gain was their loss. What does that do in your heart? Does that not endear you to them? Does that make you love them? Doesn't it make you want to...

see the things that they loved and sacrificed for come to fruition and to be accomplished. Kids often see this with their parents, you hope, that when they see the sacrifices and the love that their parents make over the course of their childhood, it endears them to their parents. They love their parents and they want in some way to give back to their parents or at least see that their parents' desires become reality. And this is what Paul's doing with his life. He says, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen so that they also may obtain salvation. That's what he's saying is it's not enough for me to be saved and it's not enough for you to be saved. There's others, people who are going to see and who are going to observe and I want them to benefit from my life, my death. So what motivates Paul? His own benefit and that he wants to see people saved from their sins and he's willing to give

His own life. Now the question comes to us, what are we willing to give? Or what have we given in our lives for the sake of others' salvation? This is the question we ought to be thinking when we see a man giving his life for the sake of the chosen. We should wonder, what have I given? What do I have to give? What have I been unwilling to give? These are the questions we should be asking ourselves. And you might think, well, I don't know that I like the answers to those questions. And I say, well, What can we do with that? We can bury it back in the ground, or we can repent and we can love God. This is the choice that's before us as we consider Paul's death for the sake of others. He's giving what he has. In another place, the apostles are walking by and this man's begging alms, and they say, we don't have money to give you, but what we do have we give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, stand up. And the man stood up. Now, am I suggesting to you that you should

go heal those who are, you know, go tell the people who can't walk that they should walk. No. I'm asking you to be more reasonable and to look into your own life and your own time and your own priorities and say, is there anything I have to give? Or have I ordered my life in such a way that all of my resources are for me? And if they are, then I say, we've not lived like the apostle, and we ought to. Maybe another way to say it is, do we care? if those who don't know God are saved? Or do we look on them and we say, too much work, too much hassle. It's not worth it. Not my problem. Isn't that just what the Pharisees were that walked by? You remember the Samaritan on the road and the Pharisees, they walked by the priests and the man was beaten and was left for dead. And they walked by and said, that's his problem. Then the Samaritan walks by, picks the man up, cleans him up.

takes him to an inn, pays for his lodging and his care, and says, if you incur any other expenses, I'll pay for it when I return. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Which one of us doesn't have something that we could give in Jesus' name for the sake of others' salvation? You may say, well, I want the assurance that they'll be saved. If I'm going to sacrifice, I want to know that it'll be worth it. You remember when Jesus healed the 10 lepers? How many of them came back and gave glory to God and thanked him for His kindness and healing all of them. Ten were healed. One came back. So did he squander his power and his mercy by healing them? And so we ought not to think in terms of always controlling and being miserly with our kindnesses and with our love and with our homes and with our resources. It's inevitable that you will, if you do this work, you will give in places that it doesn't bear fruit.

And that's okay. That's okay. There's benefit to you to love God and demonstrate it in that way. If you've been here a while, you may have heard this story. When I was in fifth grade, young, right? Me and my mom. And my mom had two full-time jobs. Because that's what it took friends to make ends meet in my house. And she got shingles. Really bad case of it. And she was out of work for, I think, three or four weeks. Which is a long time to go without. when you're needing to work two full-time jobs just to make ends meet. And she was in the bed. She was very sick. And I was not what you would call a good kid, not a good student. I would not be the kid you wanted in your class. And so I had a fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Wallace. She was about that tall, a little Italian lady. And she caught wind that our family was having a hard time. And so she took it upon herself for, like,

to bring dinner to my house every week, every night. She'd just go home, and she'd make lasagna, or she'd make or get whatever she did, something home-cooked, I remember most nights. And we'd get out of school at 3 o'clock, and at 6 or 7, Mrs. Wallace would show up, and she'd have a pan of something, and she'd give it to us. And she did this not just once or twice, but really until my mom got better, which was weeks. Now, how did I respond to her? What kind of kid did I become in her class? Remember, I was not the kid you wanted in class before. I loved Mrs. Wallace. I still know her, and I'm still Facebook friends with her and still talk to her occasionally, and she's got kids that are my age and grandkids now. I love her. And would it surprise you that Mrs. Wallace, this public school teacher from Aurora, Illinois, was a Christian and that that's why she did what she did? So can we do things like that?

These are things we can do. When we look at Paul and we say, well, he's wasting away in a prison cell about to die for the gospel. I can't do that. And I say, okay, well, that may not be what the Lord's called you to do for the sake of the chosen. But can we not do things like Mrs. Wallace did? Yeah, we can do things like Mrs. Wallace did and more. Could you imagine being a teacher and picking the worst kid in your class and being nice to him? And that's really what I was. And that was what she did. And it was God's kindness to me.

Another story that's similar, you know, growing up without a dad, not many years, maybe fifth, sixth grade, something like that, I got involved in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program as a little brother, right, because I didn't have a dad. And this family, PCUSA or United Methodist, you know, not theologically where we're at, someone came and said, hey, there's kids that need help. They loved me. For years, they loved me and had me into their house and cared for me. These are the kinds of things we can do. And they're the kinds of things we ought to do. All of the love that we demonstrate for our neighbors does not have to be a part of the ministries of this church. They're things that ought to be carried out by God's people as they're able with the people around them. So I ask you, will God remember Mrs. Wallace's kindness to me when she stands before him? Will she be rewarded for it? Now, do you think she had that in mind when she did it? I don't know if she should have.

And I say, well, whether she did or she didn't, I don't actually know. I've never asked her. We ought to have in mind what we're going to have to present to our king when we stand before him. Whether she realizes it or not, she's going to have a kindness to me and to my family to present to Jesus Christ. And it'll be a crown for her. Don't you want that for yourself, for your kids, your spouse? for your neighbors. That's sort of work. The thing that Paul did here, the thing that Mrs. Wallace did, or Mr. Mathewson, my big brother, did, God used it. Many years later, both of these people, Mrs. Wallace and Mr. Mathewson, my big brother, God used them years later to plant seeds. And I think that all Mr. Mathewson that I remember doing that was particularly Christian, was praying before we had meals. We weren't having Bible studies. He took me fishing and canoeing and boy stuff because I didn't have a man to take me to go do boy stuff. And I remember us praying before meals, and he said, well, we're going to pray before we eat. Yes, it was. And the reason I'm saying it is I don't want you to get in your head. See, we're Reformed, and you think too much, okay? Everything's got to be so distinctly, exclusively,

obviously Christian and in some ways hard, harsh, like pressure. I tell you these stories to say, these people loved me because they were Christians. It was Christian for them to do the things they did. And as robust as their Christian witness was, was simply praying for me. Mrs. Wallace would say, I'm praying your mom will get better. And here's your dinner. And I hope you like brownies. We're going to pray before we eat. And you know, it's Christmas time, so we'll buy you a Christmas present. These are the simple things they did. They welcomed me into their family and they loved me. And I'm convinced, I mean, it's burned into my mind that they did that and that they were Christians who did it. This is what Paul's doing as he's writing to Timothy. For the sake of those who are chosen, I don't want you to think too hard and too long about it because it'll keep you from doing really simple, basic Christian things.

that you might even take for granted. It may be that you go, I don't know what to do because I don't know what to do. And I'm saying there are things you do if you live your life as a Christian, like praying at your meals, that are distinctly Christian. And people who haven't grown up around that, that's news to them. They didn't know that they should be thankful for their food or that God provided it for them. And that symbol can be evangelistic and ministry to them. Because that's where they're at. That's where I was at as a kid, having never been taught anything. Yeah. Yeah. John said we've got a whole daycare full of kids. And so a few times a week, it was much easier before COVID, I'd go down there and just sit and the kids crawled all over me and played with me and stuff. And for a lot of them, it's the only male attention they ever get. Anyone who wants to talk to them for 30 seconds and ask how their day was and that you like their sparkly shoes or their...

You know, little beads in their hair or whatever. If you ever want to do that, talk to me. You can come visit the kids in the daycare. We would love to have you do it. It would be good for you, and it would be good for them. They're not like you, though. You know, they're little black kids and African kids. You're welcome to come. Just talk to me about it. It's one small way. You can say, what am I going to do if I go in there and stuff? I'm going to say, hi, this is Mr. Smith. He goes to church with us, and he's a good friend of mine. And that's all it'll take, and the kids will be friendly to you. By the second or third time you come, they'll be hanging on your legs. That's the way they are with me. People are always watching you as a Christian to see the things you do. They're observing it. They're receiving your kindnesses and your mercies. And I don't want you to think that you're going to live your life and that it will have no impact, that God is somehow...

has no desire to use the simple things you do in his name to build his kingdom. So we ought to be about this work. One, because there's a benefit to us, but two, because there's a benefit to others. For the sake of the chosen, that they might also obtain salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory. You remember in Romans where Paul was talking about the Jews, his kinsmen, and how he wished that they would know Jesus Christ. And he says this thing that's, Crazy. Do you know what he says? Do you remember what he says? You guys are shaking your head. What's he say? Yeah. Yeah, he says, I'll give my life for them. I'll go to hell forever if they would believe. I would trade places with them. And you think, well, that's a stupid thing to say. Why would you do such a thing? Because he loved them. They were his people. And he wanted them to obtain salvation and with it eternal glory.

He wanted them to be with him in heaven. And he was willing to sacrifice and to give whatever was required. Here, he gives his life. But he says, I would give my soul. That's love. That's loving God and that's loving your neighbor as yourself. This is what it means to be a Christian. Simple things, little things over the course of your life. Sacrificing and giving for the benefit of others. praying that God would use it to work out salvation in their life. For me, I'm telling you stories from when I was in fifth grade and sixth grade. When did you become a Christian, Dave? When I was like 21 or 22, you know, like 10 years after that, after I had really no more contact with these people that God used. And so we plant and we water, but God in his time causes growth. Be sure that you're planting and watering.

Then Paul goes on and says, this is a trustworthy statement. If we died with him, we will also live with him. As we stare down the prospect of giving our lives and sacrificing for ourselves, of ourselves for the sake of others, if we die daily, we'll live with him. I want to point out that what Paul is not saying here is if we die with him, meaning if we die like Jesus died on the cross, a sinner's death, an innocent man. Paul is about to die in the same way. When he says here, if we die with him, I don't want you to think that what's required here is that you do some extravagant thing worthy of being recorded in the pages of Scripture to be considered worthy of life. Instead, what this passage is teaching us is that we should be dying daily to the sins that Jesus conquered through his death.

If we die with him, what does it mean for you to die with Jesus Christ? Well, it may be that you're required to die for your faith in Jesus Christ. But I would bet that most of us, if not all of us, that's probably not going to be what happens. So does this verse have any application to our lives? How are we supposed to die with Jesus? Well, we're to be dying daily to those sins that he gave his life to atone for. And so what was very high and theological and far off becomes very practical and day-to-day. Are you dying with him? He died to save you from your sins. Are you dying from them as well? So that you can live with him. In Luke, when Jesus was speaking, or Matthew and Mark, he also record this. He says, whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. What is he calling his disciples to do?

Lose their lives. Die. Go jump off a cliff and die? Go do something illegal and get killed? Die to your sins. Whoever is willing to lose his life, the lusts and the passions that attend him in this life, he who will lose that life for Jesus' sake, he's the one who will save it. He's the one who will live with Jesus because he died with him first. He goes on and says, if we endure, we will also reign with him. And I think endurance is something that's important for us. Scripture says in another place, you have need of endurance. Because when hard things come into our lives, difficult things, burdens to carry, our desire very quickly becomes, I just want it over. I don't want to have to endure. I just want it to be done. And so in Hebrews it says we have need of endurance. And here Paul says if we endure with him, you realize that the life of a Christian is a life of enduring hardship and trial and sorrow.

and difficulty and pain. I want you to know that the suffering and the hardships that you face in your life or that you will face in your life to come, these are the very things that conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. In Romans 8, Paul says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. So how is it that we think we'll be conformed to the image of Jesus? Will that all just happen when we die and we're glorified? At that point, we'll be changed. It is true that it will be finished and completed at that point. But is there any application to our lives that as we live, we will be conformed? And if there is, how? I submit to you, the way we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ before we die is through enduring hardship and suffering.

In Hebrews 12, the author exhorts us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and now has sat down at the right hand of the throne. Jesus had to endure, and he endured on our behalf. He didn't endure the cross for his sake. He endured the cross for our sake. If we endure with him, we will also reign with him. We have need of endurance. realizing that our suffering is what makes us more like Jesus, who went before us enduring the cross so that he would have many brethren. You know, when I think about this, as I've been working through this book, 2 Timothy and 1 Timothy, I think, you know, these are not popular things to say. Like, I wonder if anyone ever leaves church feeling like, ah, good, I feel like, I keep feeling like my job every week is to come and bring a hat pin to your desires for the Christian life.

and to say to you, it's not what you've been told it's going to be. And I'd rather tell you ahead of time that there's a cost to following Jesus than for you to figure it out after the fact and resent it that nobody told you. The best benefits I've had in my life is when people were willing to tell me things that were hard to prepare me for them ahead of time so that I wasn't caught flat-footed and angry when I realized this is not what I thought it was going to be. Whether that's what it means to be a man or what it means to work hard or what it means to be a husband or what it means to have children or to be a pastor or anything, anything. I've always appreciated those who've come to me and had the faith to tell me the truth and say, there's rocks in that field you're going to plow and you need to plow it. And so I felt like I'm just, everyone's going to be discouraged. They're like, why do they keep coming back? No one's like, oh, thank you. Everyone's like, oh.

But I think there's real benefit to us having our expectations aligned with what the Bible teaches. At the same time as I'm feeling like, man, this isn't the most encouraging stuff. It's not the funnest things to say. I think it's absolutely necessary because what I don't want for myself or for you is to spend my life as a pastor watching you guys quit enduring and to say, that's too much. That's too hard and I'm done. I don't want to labor in vain. I don't want your faith to be in vain. And so we need to learn endurance. And I think it's helpful to us daily, weekly at least, to be reminded of how God works out godliness in us and builds his kingdom. And my hope is that you come and that you listen and that you consider because you realize that this is God's way with us. And that you think of your own life and you see how God has done these things and is doing these things in your life now. Wearing you out of all of your own strength,

So that you have to rely on his. And he promises, if we endure, we will also reign. We will not endure for eternity. This is a temporary season. It's our whole life. But there is a crown at the end of it. There is a victory. And there is freedom and peace and rest and victory. So with the weight of these things, you may be tempted, as I just sort of alluded to, to say, ah, it's too heavy. Ah, it's too much. It's too hard. Maybe you don't think that now. Maybe you'll think that in six months or five years or ten years. And then Paul warns us, if you deny him, right coming on the heels of this, if you deny him, he will deny you. If we cry out and we say, this is too much and I can't bear it. No more suffering for me. I want my peace and rest now. I want it to stop hurting. I want it to stop being hard. If we deny Jesus Christ in these ways, Paul tells us, he will also deny us.

Where? Before the judgment seat of his father. And so what he's fastening on with an iron thread right now is that endurance is not for a time and not on our terms, but it's for our whole lives. And if we endure for a season and then we quit, all's lost. How will I endure my whole life? Many of you are young, have a lot of life ahead of you. And so you have energy. And some of you are older. And you don't have as much life ahead of you, but you also don't have as much strength and energy. How will you endure? Only in the strength that he supplies. And the thing is, if you've ever learned a discipline in your life, if you've ever had a coach or an instructor or a teacher, their only job is to tell you what you've not done well yet. And as they tell you that day after day, after week after week, after season after season, year upon year,

Where they're saying, you're not doing it right yet. You need to work on this, do it this way, whatever. What's happening throughout all of that? You're getting better. You don't feel like you're getting better. You want to quit. You say, this isn't any fun. They don't like me. It's not worth it. I don't care if I can play the piano or whatever it is you're doing. But all the while, if you were to listen to your recording of when your teacher was telling you as a seven-year-old, you're not doing it right. And then you listen to your teacher say, To the 15-year-old, you're not doing it right. There'd be worlds of difference. Yeah, yeah. The music teacher says the critique only gets more particular, more scrupulous. Do harder things and do them better. This is God's way with us. You will not often feel in your life like you're serving God better than you did in the past. Many times you'll feel like you're serving God worse than you used to. I was a better Christian when... But it's not true. It's not true.

My boys play soccer, and they've got a good coach this year. And you know what he did this last week? He's new. He made them run until they puked. At least one of them did. One kid had an asthma attack, and another one threw up. And I thought, there's hope for this team. And he makes them run. Everywhere they go, everything they do, they have to run. Even if they're in one place, they have to run in place. And I think there's hope. Now, I'll ask you. Do the kids like this coach better than the last coach? Oh, no, no. Well, the competitive ones do. The ones who didn't throw up, right? But all the kids are like, man, coaches, you know. What do you think they're going to want to do after another week of this? Quit the team, right? They're all going to want to quit the team. And what's the coach supposed to do then? And you have a commitment to this team not to quit. They need you. Well, I'm tired and I don't like to run. I understand. Some of the kids aren't built for running.

But it turns out soccer, you have to run. So they've got to learn to run to the best of their ability. If we can appreciate a coach who would do something like that with us, can't we appreciate God doing the same thing with us? Will this team not be better off at the end of the year for his work in pushing them to endure when they want to quit saying, you can't quit. If you quit, my soul has no pleasure in you and you won't get to come to the awards night. Because that's what happens with kids that quit the team, right? They don't get to come to the pizza party at the end of the season. That's all the Lord's saying here. If you deny me, I'll deny you. You won't be at the marriage feast of the Lamb. So don't deny him. But doesn't the Lord need me? Michael's going, nope. It's tempting to think that we're needed. And the longer that we go on and the more people depend on us, that we're needed. What would the Lord do without me? Even in that situation where there's been years of faithfulness and

serving the Lord. If we're faithless, he says, if we quit, if we won't continue to live by faith and persevere and be willing to have the Lord prune us and shape us and conform us to his image, if we become faithless, he remains faithful. Which is to say, his plans and his will being accomplished in this world are not dependent on our faithfulness. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. For our daily bread, for our life, for our breath, for everything that we have. And the reason he's faithful is because he cannot deny himself. God loves us and is merciful to us and bears with us through all kinds of our weaknesses. Year upon year of us not doing what we ought to do. But he doesn't bear with us because he needs us. If you think of my kid's soccer team, if a couple of the kids quit, what's it going to mean for the team?

I mean, more work for the rest of them. The team's not going to cease to exist because some people decide we're not going to do it. And the same is true in our life. If a husband decides he's not going to die to himself, he's not going to endure persevering, he says, I've had enough of this work of husbandry and fathering. Does the need for husbandry and fathering go away if he walks away from his family? No. The church and family and other people have to step in and do the work because God's faithful. So if we're to serve God the way Paul serves God, he's serving him unto death. We have to be humble. It's a humbling thought to realize God does love you and knows how many hairs are on your head, and yet he doesn't need you to accomplish his will. His love is not a love of necessity. He doesn't love you because he has to. He doesn't love you because he can't accomplish his will without you. He loves you because he's a perfect father who loves his children.

And he delights to do it. It's a humbling thing to be the recipient of that kind of love. That humility that it produces ought to help us to remember when we're suffering and struggling and saying, this isn't fair and I don't want this and I want it to be done. And God, why are you putting me through this? And what will you do without me? If you're faithless, he will remain faithful and you'll reap what you sow. If you sow righteousness and if you sow faithfulness, you'll reap the benefit of it. If you sow to your own desires and your own fears, you'll reap that too. So there's two things that I want you to go away with application-wise. The first is with regard to loving our brothers. We talked about it at the beginning. Paul says, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen. Remember, open your eyes and see needs. See things you can do. And I can tell you from personal experience, when you serve God and you decide, you know what, I'm going to go do a Christian thing today. I'm going to go love somebody.

whoever they are, some little simple thing, right? Jesus says a cup of cold water. It will give you life and strength that you didn't know you could have. It'll encourage you. And so remember in your day-to-day life that you have a responsibility to build God's kingdom, to love other people the way Paul loved the chosen. This is our work. And number two, as I just said, you will reap what you sow. If you die with Jesus, you'll reap life. If you endure with him, you'll reap victory and rule with him, alongside of him. And if you sow denial and faithlessness, you'll reap being denied. It's my desire that you would sow faithfulness, death with Jesus Christ, that you might live with him and enduring with him, that you might reign with him, not denial. Let's pray.