Come To Me Soon #1

So this morning we're going to be moving on from our study, excuse me, in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 to 8. We've spent five weeks studying that passage. And now we're going to be moving on to verses 9 to 16. And we're getting very near the end of this letter. And as we come to the end of Paul's final epistle, Paul takes time here to name a number of men who have been his traveling companions, those who've ministered. beside him on all of his missionary journeys. And so this morning our sermon is going to be a little bit different than it would normally be. Normally I would work just through the text and show you exactly what it says. Today is going to be kind of a topical sermon, kind of a, I'm going to show you something that Paul mentions but doesn't go into depth in. And there's going to be a comparison between three of the men that he mentions at the very end. There are other men that he mentions, but there are three that we know something about. And I want us to look at those men.

and can compare and contrast them and see the failures of some and the faith of others. Those men are Demas, Mark, and Luke. Paul gave us these men as examples, and they're meant to warn us as well as encourage us to walk faithfully with our God. And so my hope this morning is that the testimony of these men's lives, whether good or bad, will help us to understand ourselves better and to stir us up to greater faithfulness to our God. Would you please stand now as you read the word of the Lord from 2 Timothy 4, verses 9-16. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true.

When you come, bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. At my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And so the overarching theme of this section is that Paul, as he ends the near of his life, is largely alone. He tells us only Luke is with him. He's had other men with him, and they've gone for various reasons away from him. But he's in Rome, awaiting his death at the hand of Nero, and he's by himself. And so he tells Timothy, his son, to come to him, to make every effort to come to him. Soon later on in our passage, he says, come before winter. They're far away. They're on opposite sides of the sea. And so for Timothy to come to him was a...

It was a significant request. It wasn't, hey, we live in the same town. Why don't you stop by sometime? It was, I'm asking you to leave aside the work that you're doing, to leave aside the churches in Ephesus, and to come. And it was probably going to take somewhere between 6 and 12 months for the trip to be resolved, to travel there, to stay there, and then to go back, if he was to go back. And so Paul's request is a big request. It's a big ask. Make every effort to come to me soon. And he tells us why. He says, basically, because I'm alone.

And I'm about to face death. Now there are two reasons that Paul wants Timothy to come to him. One is, there's an element of loneliness. I think you probably all would understand that when you go through hard things, there's a part of you that wants to be alone. And sometimes we give in to that part and you tell people to go away. But oftentimes when you're suffering, you don't want to go through it alone. You find comfort in something, someone. You're looking for comfort. And so Paul here, as he's entering his last days, takes comfort in Timothy and his presence and the strength that he would provide. And so he says, come to me. And there is a personal element to it. I want you to come to me because of our relationship. There is also work yet to be done. Even as Paul is about to die, he's concerned about the cares and the needs of the church. And he wants to talk and minister to Timothy, not in letter, but in person. So he says, come to me.

And you can imagine if you were Timothy and you were all the way across the sea and you receive this letter and he says, come to me, Timothy's first thought would be, what about my responsibilities? I'm just supposed to leave? Timothy's at Ephesus and you'll notice in verse 12 he says, but Tychicus I've sent to Ephesus. And so Paul's concerned with the welfare of the churches. and of the ministry that's going on in these other places. When Crescens goes to Galatia, when Titus goes to Dalmatia, when Tychicus is sent to Ephesus, Paul's aware of what's going on. Even as he's facing his death, he's aware of what's going on, and he's seeing to it that their needs are provided for. And so he sends Tychicus, essentially, to do Timothy's work in Ephesus. So Timothy is freed up to come and to visit him. And so he says, come, make every effort to come to me soon.

I miss you. We have work to do. I don't know how much longer I have. Come to me soon. And it is true that death is inconvenient and that it does require us to drop what we're doing, leave aside what we've got going on for the sake of going and attending to those who are dying. So make every effort to come to me soon. And then he mentions Demas. He says, Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Well, who is Demas? Demas, we find out in Philemon and as well as in Colossians, that Demas is a traveling companion. He's one of the men who went around with Paul on his missionary journeys, ministering. And we know that he's one of the leading men because he's mentioned in these multiple books. He's mentioned in Colossians, he's mentioned in Philemon, and then again here. And so he's someone that would have been known.

to Timothy, who'd also traveled around with Paul. And he says, Demas has left me. Having loved this present world, he's deserted me. And so this is not a glowing review. This is the last word about Demas. If you were to read about him in Colossians, you'd say, Demas is a good guy. If you were to read about him in Philemon, you might say, faithful man. But now, as Paul's facing death, Demas blinks. He flinches. He leaves. He abandons Paul. And Paul gives us the reason, he says, because he's loved this world. He's loved this present world. Now what did it mean for Demas to love the world? I think it meant, there's no indication in this text that Demas is in league with someone like Alexander the coppersmith, who comes up later, and we'll talk about Alexander another time. Alexander is mentioned as one who is opposed to the gospel, one who has caused much harm. Paul tells us as much.

He says, Demas isn't in this category. Demas is named among the men who are Christians and who are faithful, who haven't rejected the truth. But yet, his love for the world has caused him, at the point of Paul's greatest need, to withdraw. And Paul roots that in Demas' love for the present world. This is a temptation. that Demas faced, is a temptation that I think all of us face, to love this world. And we have to understand this temptation of loving the world not as a temptation always to outright reject the gospel and to do like Alexander the coppersmith did, who was at one point a follower of Jesus, someone who would have been known to be faithful and then just outright doesn't about face and turns around. It is true that we need to avoid being like Alexander the coppersmith.

But we also need to see what Demas was, who was a man who otherwise was faithful. But when the difficulty came, when the cost rose, he went, I can't. I can't. And it's in those times when we will have the best reasons for why we can't stick with the Lord and trust him. What were the temptations? What were the dangers that Demas faced? Well, being associated with Paul would have had its risks. Have there been people, Christians in your life, that you thought, if I'm associated with them, it might not look good for me? Were you rejecting the gospel when you faced that temptation? Not entirely. Though you were at that point saying, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to fade back into the background, out of the light. I don't want to be associated with that.

Because they might turn their gaze from him to me. And that's what Demas is doing here. Thessalonica is where he goes to. Thessalonica is a harbor town. It's a place of wealth, a great place of trade. And you presume that Demas had some sort of business there, some sort of life. We don't know if that was his home or not, but he leaves and he goes to Thessalonica. And you presume that he's got business that is important to him. Oftentimes, we have business. In our lives, things that we say, this is very important, and I would, but I can't. And I suspect that's what Demas was doing here. I would, but I can't. What I'm sure Demas didn't say, and our text doesn't tell us that, but when I think of myself, I think if I were in Demas' shoes, the one thing I wouldn't say is, Paul, I'm leaving because I love this world, and you're going to get me killed. I'm sure that's not what he said, though I'm convinced that was the truth. We're all very good at counting the cost.

in any given situation, whether you're at work or you're at Thanksgiving or wherever you're at. We can all take stock of, if I say this or if I do that, it's going to cause a problem. And too often we as Christians go the way of Demas and say, well, then I'll be quiet. And that, Paul tells us, is a love of this world. If anyone could have avoided Nero's fires, it could have been Paul. He was very intelligent. well-bred, he could have avoided the troubles that his faithfulness brought him. But time and again, Paul walked into those troubles, not because he was seeking them out and wanted to get in trouble, but because he was committed to being faithful to God and going where his faithfulness required him to go. When he was with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he tells them, he says, I don't know what awaits me in Jerusalem.

Except that bonds and afflictions are in my path. I'm paraphrasing here. He says, I know that the Lord told me in a special revelation that I'm going to leave and troubles what's coming. And how easy would it be for us or for him to see the trouble and go, I see the trouble, I'm going the other way. Paul cared more about his faithfulness to God and about the gospel going forward than he did about his own personal comforts. And that is the point at which he and Demas split. You must love this world, the comforts of this world, the ease of this world, the safety of this world, the wealth of this world. You know when kids get in trouble at home and you take them into the other room and you discipline them? Do you remember when you, maybe when you were a kid, do you remember hearing, you could hear what was going on on the other side of the door and you learned, you were like, I shouldn't do that because I don't want to end up on the other side of the door. And so from our childhood up, we've learned to avoid

And with many Christians today, it's a principle. It's a principle. They would say that if you've gotten yourself into a situation similar to Paul's, not being put to death, but if you've gotten yourself in trouble, you've failed. You've done wrong. The Christians ought never to be in a situation where their faithfulness has a real cost. We read in our scripture lesson this morning about John the Baptist. He saw Herod. He saw Herod with Herodias, and Herodias was his sister-in-law. And he says, it's not lawful for you to do that. Who is he talking to? Is he talking to a Jew? Nope. Is he talking to a Christian? Nope. He was talking to the tetrarch, the leader, the civil authority. He says, what you're doing is immoral. Do you think John was surprised when they showed up with an axe to cut off his head?

He'd been imprisoned. Herod said in our text that Herod wanted to put him to death, but Herod was afraid of the crowds. I think both John and Paul knew that that sort of danger would be in their future. That following Jesus Christ would have a cost to them. And it cost both of them their lives. And they're the type of men that we should aspire to be like. Not men like Demas. Though, as I said, Demas is what's held up today as the kind of man... that represents faithfulness. Now, no one would say, be like Demas, because he's not shown here in a positive light. But he is cunning, and he is wise, and he is able to negotiate the dangers and keep his head, quite literally. And Paul says he did it because he loved this world.

I think many times this love of this present world is, we think of it in terms of our ability to minister in the future. If I cause a problem now, what it will do is it will remove my ability to be a faithful witness later. Couldn't you see Demas thinking that? I've been with Paul all these years and I know the truth and I believe the truth. He's about to go away. We can't all die right now. What I will do is live to fight another day. That's what it means to love this world. It means to deceive yourself into thinking that your comforts are God's will for you, that your ease, that your longevity, God wouldn't want something other than that, would he? In Paul's case, he did. And so we make friends. We seek terms of peace with the world, with the ungodly, for the sake of our own self-preservation. But James warns us.

Not to be like Demas with these words. He says, you adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Hostility toward God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Don't you wish that scripture was more unclear? Like, why is James so intent on drawing these hard lines? Friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. And you say, well, I don't want to be an enemy of God, but I... I don't want to die either. And I say to you, as we live our lives, as it becomes more difficult to be a Christian and to maintain a clear conscience and to serve God in our society, passages like this are only going to be ringing in our ears or should be ringing in our ears more. We're going to be faced not with we can all go along to get along and we can all move through life generally thinking we agree and believe the same things.

Increasingly, that's not the case. Biblical Christianity doesn't have a wing of the government or a political party that's promoting their stuff. So do you want to be a friend of the world? Do you love this present world? Are you making yourself an enemy of God? Now, it's a tough question because I don't know that any of us set out to do this sort of stuff. I don't think Demas set out at the beginning going, I'm not going to be faithful when it gets dangerous. I think he probably thought, I'm going to be faithful, even if it gets dangerous. I don't think Judas Iscariot set out saying, I'm looking from the very beginning of his time with Jesus. I don't think he was looking for a time to betray him. But there did come a time. Yeah. Yeah. It's time for the difficulty and the hardship to be over. We've produced our fruit. Or maybe we think that we can somehow negotiate a truce between our love of the world and our faithfulness to Christ.

Demas wasn't able to. Paul says, he loved this world and he deserted me. He left. And so we would be foolish to think that we have a greater ability than Demas to negotiate the tensions that we will face. I'm going to go this far and no further. When has that ever worked in your life when you've been fighting against sin? I will give myself this much room, but then I'll stop. I wouldn't do more than that. I wouldn't go beyond these boundaries that I've set up for myself. I can wander so far away from God, but I would never completely wander off. And so when Demas was faced with the reality of Paul's execution, that he may well end up next to him, Demas chose to abandon him. He left. I've got pressing business I have to attend to. I'll come back. This doesn't mean I'm unwilling to suffer with you. Surely these thoughts.

Phil Demas' head. Many times in our lives, when we say, I can't do that, we're using a substitute. And it's not that we can't, though that's what we say. What we mean is, I won't. One of the things I appreciate about Scripture, and I hope you do too, is those hard lines, those clear lines that it draws. It's very clear. And so Jesus tells us, he taught us about a tree. And he says, a tree is known by its fruit. A tree is not known by its intentions. A tree is not known by its flowers. A tree is not known by its leaves. A tree is not known by where it's planted. A tree is known by its fruit. What fruit does it produce? And sometimes very beautiful trees are unfruitful. And very ugly trees bear a lot of fruit. So what kind of fruit did Demas produce in the end? There are many things that could have been written on his tombstone. A faithful follower and companion of Paul on these, that, and the other missionary journeys. But in the end,

That's not who he was. That's not what he did. What would be written is, having loved this world, he deserted his Lord. Now, I don't want that to be true of any one of us. And I don't want you to think that Demas was some sort of special sinner who faced special temptations. If you think about it, who didn't desert Jesus when they came out to arrest him? All of his disciples, the men who were closest to him, when the danger came, you know, Peter tried. He's like, we aren't going to stand for it. You know, lops off the guy's ear, and Jesus says, no. And then Peter was gone. He followed at a distance. But as soon as the little slave girl came and said, you're one of them, he says, no, no, no, no, no. With curses, he denied it three times. This is a common temptation. Why did Peter run away? Why did all the disciples run away when they came to arrest Jesus?

The kids, I bet, in this room know the answer. They didn't want to end up with Jesus. And neither did Demas want to end up with Paul. And so this is a common temptation that you and I face. Demas is not some sort of terrible person. He's just a normal sinner who faces normal temptations. Paul warns us and he says he did it because he loved the world. And so if you want to avoid deserting Jesus Christ, abandoning Paul or the truth of Scripture, The way to avoid it is to look at Scripture and see where you go, oh, that's not for me. Or where you look at the world and you say, this is what I want. This is what will make me happy. This is what I want my life to be about. Because if you try to maintain the two pursuits, you may be able to for a time, but when it all comes to a head and you're forced to choose, you may often end up like Demas. And so it's good that we're warned by Demas.

and in a sermon, not to follow in him, his footsteps. He failed at this point. Recorded in Scripture for all of posterity to look and say, don't be like him. He was given as an example, a case study, for our benefit, that we might not be like him. The next man I want to look at is Mark. Now Mark comes third, you know, it's Demas and then Luke and then Mark. But I want to look at Mark next, John Mark. Paul says, bring Mark. Now who is John Mark? John Mark was also one of Paul's traveling companions. He traveled with Paul and with Barnabas. Barnabas was most likely his uncle. Traveled with him on their first missionary journey. But at some point on that trip, Mark, like Demas, deserted Paul. He left. We're not told why, but we know that it was not a pleasant break. It caused a division.

between Paul and Barnabas. I want to read to you in Acts 15 where this division resurfaces. At this point in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas are about to go back on their second journey, their second missionary journey. They're going to circle back through the places they had gone on their first trip. And Barnabas says, hey, why don't we take John Mark with us? And Paul says, no way, no how. Absolutely not. Here's a record of it in Acts 15. After some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers and sisters in every city. in which we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also. But Paul was of the opinion that they should not take, I'm sorry, that they should not take along with them this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. Now it turned into such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another. And Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. And so Mark was like Demas.

He was a deserter. We don't know what happened. We don't know what hardship it was. But at some point, Mark said, this isn't for me. Uncle, Paul, I'm out. I'm out. This is not for me. Now Barnabas, being an encourager, being generally, I think, a happy man, a generous man, a kind man, says, we ought to be merciful and kind and bring him along again. He's learned his lesson. And Paul says, no. We will not. Now, if you were Paul or you were Barnabas and you look at what they have to say here, who would you rather be like? Barnabas is a happy, kind, encouraging man. Paul is, no, we will, no. If you want to take him, you can take him, but he is not coming with me. Paul's just this adamant, dug in his heels, crusty, just mean, unforgiving. We'd all want to be like Barnabas. And could you imagine being Mark?

While this conversation is going on, it'll be awful. It'll be awful. Poor Mark. Paul, you know, never, not being, not forgiving, not allowing the time passage to cover over these sins, always remembering the failures. Mark would almost be justified in getting angry at Paul, being bitter, justifying his behavior because of the kind of man Paul was, as demonstrated. in Acts 15 when Barnabas wanted to bring him along. But no, that's not the kind of man that Mark is. We can understand from the text when Paul here at the end of his life wants two men to come to him. Timothy, or I'm not sorry, yes, Timothy. He wants Timothy with him, he wants John Mark with him, and he has Luke with him. Now who does he want with him as he dies?

Well, one of the men, at least that he calls, was a man who started out like Demas, a deserter, an unfaithful man. One who, when the pressures got too high, ran away. But at some point between Acts 15 and the end of Paul's life here in 2 Timothy 4, it's apparent that Mark heeded Paul's rebuke and repented. And that Paul, somewhere and somehow, it's not recorded for us, caught wind of this and said, bring him with me. He is useful for service. And so Mark is like Demas at the beginning of his life, at the beginning of his ministry, unfaithful when the difficulty came. But then he repented. And his repentance made him fit for future service. Now, I know all of us in our Christian lives would like to become more godly without failing miserably. It's not how it works. I'm sorry.

That's not how it works. You will grow, many times, you will grow the most in your life after your worst sins and your most painful experiences. Because it's in those times that you come face to face with the holiness of God and with your sin as it really is, not as you've dressed it up and lied to yourself about it. You come to see, this is who I am. This is what I've done. If I'm a tree, this is the fruit that I've borne. And it's at those points, that you will choose repentance or you'll become hardened in your rebellion. Our consciences are a strong thing. We work hard to keep ahead of our consciences and the pressures that they put on us, convicting us of the sins that we commit. You think of Judas. He tried to go back and give the money back. I don't want to do it. Here's the money. It's too late. You think of Esau, who later sought for repentance with tears, but it was too late.

Our consciences are blessings to us from God because they sometimes make us very miserable. When our will is weak or corrupted and our mind is full of lies, here stands our conscience given to us as a gift from God to say, no, you're wrong. Whatever lies you're telling everybody else and whatever you've convinced them to believe, you know you're lying. You know it's not true. And I can't help but think that that's what went on with Mark. And that sometime, In the timeline, you've got Paul's first missionary journey and Mark abandons them. Then some time goes by and you've got the second missionary journey. Let's take Mark with us. And Paul says, no, I will not have him with me. And I'm convinced that God used Paul's opposition to Mark at this point to bring him to repentance and to make him useful later. Because Mark understood that what he had done was wrong. Barnabas never told him with such clarity, no.

What you did was wrong. It was sin. You abandoned us. And you may not come. These are unpopular things to say. These are unpopular ways to behave. If you were to treat your children this way and you were to say, no, you may not. I know you tried. There's this thing that wells up inside. Well, maybe they didn't mean it. Well, maybe they were trying. Maybe they won't do it again. Maybe if I'm kind or gentle or overlooking or gracious, it'll all get better. Paul doesn't give us that example. Paul says, no, Mark, no. Barnabas, no, I will not have him with me. And it's just monstrous to our ears that we'd say, no, you can't do that thing. You have excuses. You have reasons. You've justified to yourself your behavior, but I will not accept your excuse. No. That is what brought Mark to repentance. And it is what made him useful to Paul at the end of his life. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.

His trust in Mark, though we don't know the particulars of how, was restored. And so I don't want you to believe that men who draw hard lines and men who say no are unable to be won over. That is what you'll always think, is that they just are out to get me. Paul was not out to get Mark. He wasn't out to be mean to him. He wasn't out to grind him into the ground. He was out for Mark's repentance. And he wouldn't accept anything less. And God used Paul's firmness. To bring him to repentance. It would be nice, and I've said this in the past, it would be nice if we would reply, respond with repentance to gentle nudges. But we don't. We don't. You husbands, you don't. If your wife comes and she's respectful and says, hey, honey, there's this thing. Can you do it for me? Oh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh. When she's like, hey, you said you were going to do it. You're like, okay, now you're right, I did. Why don't you say it nicer?

That's what all the husbands think. Idiot. Sometimes she didn't. But I bet you many times she has. And you didn't listen. You wives, when your husband comes to you and he says, Honey, no, no. There's an exit there and it just goes down into fear and despair and anger and bitterness. And we're just going to keep going on down this highway of life. We're not taking that detour. Please don't, honey. And she says, Nope, we're going over here. And then you go all the way down to the dead end road. And he says, I said no, you didn't listen. And you're not going to blame me for this now. If you were just more gentle and you were just more patient, did you listen when he was? Or children, when their parents disciplined them? You're always so mean to me. You never give me what I want. It's true. Many times we don't give you what you want because we know that it's bad for you.

Many times we don't give you what you want because you've been unfaithful with the little things we've given to you. So we're not giving you more freedom and more room to harm yourself. And so we say, no. All my friends can. Well, I'm not their parent. If I was their parent, they wouldn't be allowed to. But they're not my responsibility, you are. Or in the church with preaching. Or with the elders. Why aren't they more kind and more gracious and more patient and more... Why are they always so aggressive? Because you don't listen unless we are. And many times it's because we're fighting for your souls when you've given up the fight. You've settled into your rebellion and we say, no, that's not okay. And you say, what's wrong with you? And we respond, no, what's wrong with you? Don't you feel hell's fires burning and reaching for you? And so Mark repented and became useful to Paul. And so if you think about yourself and you think, I'm like Demas. Here I am, been unfaithful. Don't remain that way.

God's goal is not to say, there you are, you're like Demas, and nothing can be done about it. Be like Mark, who when he failed, turned, and became useful again. To Paul as he died. And to the church, repent. The third person we have is Luke. Faithful Luke. Luke alone is with me. We don't know anything about Crescens, who was sent to, where was Crescens sent to? Sent to Galatia. This is the only time he ever comes up. We don't know anything about him. He was with Paul and he's gone. Titus we know about, who's gone back to Dalmatia to preach. And you get the impression that both Crescens and Titus were not of the character of Demas. That their leaving Paul was on good terms. They were sent. Or they said, we need to go and do this thing. We need to attend to the ministry in these areas. And they went with Paul's blessing. And Luke was left with him. Faithful Luke, who stayed with him.

Luke is, I think, in the New Testament, a character, a person who's passed over. When we think of the New Testament, we think, who wrote the New Testament? Who had major influences on the New Testament? We think of Jesus, right? And then we think of Paul, because Paul wrote so much of the New Testament. And by number of books, Paul did write a lot of the New Testament, most of the books. But by words and by content, Luke wrote far more than Paul did. He wrote his whole gospel, and then he wrote the whole book of Acts. And so Luke was studious. Luke was attentive to the gospel, to learning about Jesus, to write his gospel. And then Paul's missionary journey and the expansion of the church right after Jesus' resurrection. Luke is his travel companion. Luke is with him. Luke is learning. Luke goes with Paul on all of the difficult things and stays by him. Where Demas deserted, where Mark had deserted, Luke stood faithfully by Paul through everything.

Luke would have faced the same situations that Demas faced, but he didn't respond the way Demas did. He stayed with him. He would have faced the same difficulties that Mark faced on Paul's missionary journeys, but he didn't desert him. And so in whatever difficulty or hardship or danger Paul got into, Luke was by his side. And so we should aim to be like Luke, right? We're moving from Demas who is unfaithful, and we don't know if he ever repented or not. The scriptures don't tell us. The last thing we know is he bore bad fruit at the end. Mark bore bad fruit, and then Mark repented and bore good fruit. And then we have Luke, who was faithful, who didn't wander off, who didn't stray. And so we should aim to be like Luke. How do you become like Luke? That's the question. If you were in Sunday school, we talked about how to build wealth. And you build wealth and faithfulness the same way, a little at a time every day. A lifetime of faithfulness is built just one day at a time.

Faithfulness today. To the burdens and the fears and the anxieties that you have today. We shouldn't think of Luke as being the sort of man who wasn't tempted like Demas was. We have no indication that he was some sort of special man who wasn't tempted. In fact, Jesus, who is more holy than all of them, right? The scripture tells us he was tempted in every way like as we are, yet without sin. And so we should never look at the records of men in the scriptures or women and think, they weren't like me. Yes, they were. Yes, they were. Luke was tempted, but God strengthened him to be faithful. His devotion and his commitment were exemplary. But the only way you produce faithfulness like Luke did is by cultivating it. It's by cultivating it. And so we come back to the question that we started with in Demas. Do you love the world? And are you cultivating friendship and peace with the world? Or are you cultivating devotion?

and commitment to the Lord. What are you producing? What are you doing? In your mind, when you think of yourself, do you think of like, well, this is all the good stuff I'm doing, and this is why the things that are bad that I'm doing, we're just going to suppress those, ignore those, turn those aside. Will you let Scripture speak to you? If it says no, where your heart wants to say yes, do you see that as... some sort of nuance that's missing in the Scripture, or do you see that as some sort of deception of your heart? If you see it as some sort of deception of your heart, then there's hope that you're building faithfulness. If you look at what Scripture says and you say, well, it can't mean that because I want that, then you're building friendship with the world, and you will reap what you sow. And in the end, you will not be like Luke, but rather Demas. I think one of the things that makes our church strange

compared to a lot of other churches, is that we talk about sin, and I often talk about our responsibilities for our sins. And I realize that in society, I'm a weirdo for saying that. And in the church especially, we're not taught to take responsibilities for our sins, for our unbelief, for the things that we do, for the things that we want. I was made that way. I can't help it. I didn't know any better. You can't say that to me. My commitment. our church's commitment is to the truth and if it reflects poorly on us and when it casts its light on us if our warts and wrinkles and failures and sins are exposed by the light then we say there they are there they are we don't say turn off the light we don't put a filter or a lens over the light we say here we are here i am here you are i think one of the most comforting things that is said in scripture is that

by Jesus is that all who come to him, that none of them will be cast out. Not one of them will be cast out. And yet, we focus on the part about not being cast out and we pass over the part about coming. You do have to come to Jesus. And to come to Jesus is to come to the reality of what the Bible says about you. And you take your own impressions of yourself or other people's impressions. Maybe your mom told you, you're a nice kid, you're a good kid. You work hard, you're smart, you're intelligent, you're bright. Or maybe she tells you you're disadvantaged and life's not fair and you've had a raw deal and you're not responsible. Whatever your view or other people's view of you is, it's not God's view of you. He tells us in his word what his view of us is. And it's not until we look and we see who we are. Do you think anyone ever said to Demas or addressed his love of the world? I'm sure Paul addressed his love of the world.

Scripture is always dealing with our love of the world and our sins. And so Demas' rejection was a willful rejection. He didn't, oh, I don't know how I ended up in Thessalonica. It was a willful rejection. He wouldn't come to Jesus at the point of Paul's death. He knew a better way. Luke, with just as many sins, came to Jesus, stood with Paul, and was faithful. And so if you want to grow in godliness, if you want to be like Luke, If you want to persevere to the end of your life through all of the trials and hardships that you'll face, you have to deal with the scriptures as they deal with you. And when it says, come to me, all you who are weary laden, and you'll find rest for your souls, you do have to come. And you do have to be honest about whether you're willing to come with the cost being what they are, which is that you have to die. Those are the terms of coming to Jesus. You have to die.

And what that means is that you no longer are your advocate before God. You now stand with God against yourself. And you say, I'm a sinner and I don't have anything to offer. I don't have a defense to give to you, Lord. I did the things that I shouldn't have done. I'm doing them. And in my doing of them, I am rebelling against you because I think that my way is better than your way. That's honest. And that... can be forgiven. But to the man or to the woman who says, why have you made me thus? Why is my life difficult? Why do I have these circumstances? Why do I face these temptations? You're storing up for yourself wrath. You're preparing to be Demas. And I don't want you to be deceiving yourself. And so that's why I speak to you this morning. So if you're like Demas, how do you become like Mark? Look honestly at yourself. If you say, I'm like Mark, but I want to be like Luke.

How did he become like Luke? Faithfulness in small things today. It's easy to look at the situation that Paul found himself in and be overwhelmed by it. I don't know what I would do in that situation, you might think. What might be required of you someday just looms out on the horizon. Scary. God's way of training you for that day is to give you small things today to be faithful with. And if you're not faithful today, you won't be faithful till later. For he who is faithful with little will be faithful with much. Demas didn't strive to kill his love for the world. And so when hardship came, he was not ready for it. And that's why he deserted. The same was initially true of Mark, but he repented and began to cultivate his death so that when Paul was dying, he was the sort of man that Paul would call on. So what are you supposed to be faithful with? Loving your wife? Respecting your husband? Obeying your parents? Reading your Bible?

praying, confessing your sins, seeking forgiveness, working hard, being honest about yourself, with yourself and others. These are the sorts of places that you and I every day have to choose whether we'll be faithful or not. Be faithful in those areas. These are the things that will prepare you to serve God when the cost of serving him is greater. If you do it now, you can have good hope that you'll be prepared for, greater difficulty in the future because you've been faithful with small things. If you don't do it now, you won't be prepared for those days. The final thing I'll say to you about being faithful with little things, being faithful with little things will often not make you feel like you're prepared to be faithful with big things. It just won't. You'll feel like your faithfulness in small things is insignificant and inconsequential and that it's just busy work. Not true. Don't trust your feelings.

They're not, God's given us feelings and emotions and they're helpful to us sometimes. And sometimes they're dangerous and sometimes they lead us astray. And so don't always be taking stock of your feelings in such a way as like, I don't know if I'm ready yet to do the difficult thing. If you build a habit of being faithful to God, you ought not to be surprised when he's faithful to you when the difficulty comes. You remember when the disciples went out and he says to them, don't worry about what you'll say. For in that moment, I'll give you words. If you'll be faithful now, he'll be faithful then. Like he was to Paul, like he was to Luke. So give yourself to the simple obedience of today. That's your job. That's my job. That's how we become like Paul and like Luke. Let's pray.