Well, dear ones, on this last Sunday of 2015, I've chosen two different passages, morning and evening, for our sermons, which bring for us what Jesus is for us and what Jesus does in us. Those are the two themes this morning and tonight. Both of these are of supreme importance. We will look at the perfect faithfulness of Jesus tonight. No matter what is in store for you in the coming new year, we can confidently profess Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. What a wonderful truth that is. And that's what we'll be looking at. This is what Jesus is, in himself, faithful. He is the light and the life of the world, the savior of sinners, the lover of our souls. But dear ones, all of that would stay outside of us. If that were before us, but we could not get into that, we would be in a miserable condition indeed. It is a picture of a parched and dying man with a cold pitcher of delicious water, but no means to bring that water into his body. And so our Bibles speak of two things, both of the glorious and wonderful person and work of Jesus for us, But it speaks as well about the rich and great work of Jesus entering into our lives and holding on to us forever. That is a fine theme for us to end the year of 2015 and look forward to 2016. And that's precisely what we have in this text here in 2 Timothy 2. The last of five faithful sayings that punctuate the pastoral epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. We find five trustworthy statements where Paul stops and says, this is a faithful saying. We don't have the luxury of time here this morning to go over and review what those previous four were in 1 Timothy 1.15, 1 Timothy 3.1, 1 Timothy 4.8, or in Titus 3.8. But we come to this last one here, which is part of Paul's writings to Timothy, the last words of the Apostle Paul found here in these four chapters. Suffice it to say that these are well-known pithy statements that had somehow found their way into the mind and expression of the church. Some believe that these were little songs that were lifted out, or they were confessions. Especially this one is believed to have been adopted at times of baptism. But we really don't know exactly where these came from. It's clear that the church knew these lines. And here is the Apostle Paul, led by the Holy Spirit, to adopt these as part of the message for the church. What a joy it must have been for the Apostle Paul to see the truth that the Lord had taught through him now being confessed and coming back to him in way of confessing these truths. And he in turn, by the Spirit, adopting them and making them a part of the Word of God. But what I would have you fix your minds and hearts on here is that your union with the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Spirit engrafting you into Him, is a most blessed bond of faith and power and life. Paul is found here in chapter 2 of 2 Timothy addressing Pastor Timothy with the need for endurance and strength to suffer for the gospel, even to face persecution, even to face imprisonment for the faith, even to face death if need be. He must be strong in grace, says verse 1. Not only because of the opposition that is before him and all the foolishness that comes in the latter part of this chapter, but because of the arduous task of the Christian ministry. And thus, Timothy must be single-hearted, like the soldier, not entangled with the affairs of the world. To be faithful and disciplined, not taking shortcuts. like the well-trained athlete who is going to win the prize. And he must be a partaker of the fruit of grace that he hopes to bring forth in his people as a hard-working farmer enjoys his own crops first. But where does such strength come from? And that answer is given in verse 8. Remember Jesus Christ. There's the dynamic. There's where the strength comes from. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Remember the Redeemer who came into this world to die for you, but is now once for all risen, never to die again. He is your Melchizedek, existing now in an indestructible life. He is your King David. He comes after, according to the As a descendant of David and an heir to that kingdom, he is your king, whose kingdom shall know no end of glory or greatness. And he is your Moses, who has published the terms of the new covenant with you, for both Jew and Gentile alike, according to my gospel, authoritatively given by the ascended Lord through apostles. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. It is a saving word preached to a lost world, and it will be, must be, opposed by the flesh. The teachings of the Bible are not warmly welcomed by those who live for this life. They mock them. They despise the Word of God. They will even imprison those who stand up for the truth of God's Word. But the Word of God itself can never ultimately be hindered. Praise God that the Word, the life-giving sword, can never be resisted, as it says here. And God has a people, a people from eternity, a chosen people, those who are beloved with an everlasting love, taken from every background, every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. And all the nations are called here to this Risen One, not only to obtain salvation from their sins, as wonderful as that is, wonderful indeed, but also with it a share as heirs of eternal glory. Notice how Paul puts it at the end of verse 10, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, Eternal glory. The gospel brings not just a pardon of all of your sin and acceptance with God, but it brings an everlasting kingdom with it, of which you are a part as a son or daughter of the Lord. And all these things are found, as it says in verse 10, in Christ Jesus. They're all stored up, treasured up in Him. The question is, how do we attain this wonderful life and salvation, this eternal life, this eternal and endless gladness? And that's where the faithful saying comes in, talking about our being engrafted into Christ and having a relationship with Him. And that's the burden of our message here today. This is where the faithful saying enters in. If we, verse 11, if we died with him, if we endure, if we deny him, if we are faithless, see that if we, if we, if we, if we, for if then clauses come rolling out, there's the faithful saying that the church had adopted and Paul is, is reading back to them. The old way of seeing these statements has been to cut them in two, two positives followed by two negatives. And so this has been made, I think, incorrectly to mean Paul saying here, hey, look, tough it out. You have a worthwhile reward in the end. You're going to have to die if you want to live. You're going to have to struggle. You're going to have to endure if you're going to reign. And don't you deny him or he'll deny you. That's how the old way has been with this passage. This approach held by many is a call to die to yourself and to endure or you will deny the Lord and he will faithfully follow through on your judgment. But there has not been a careful consideration, it seems to me, of the verbs that Paul uses, as is oftentimes the case in exegesis. Paul does not say, if we die with him, that is, if we suffer or face persecution, even if we lay down our lives for him, then we will still have a life in glory. But that's not what is being said. There's a progression here. You may not be able to see it so clearly in your English versions, but the first if we is in the past. If we died with him, We have died with him is the picture. There's the past completed action. And then the next one is a present tense. If we are enduring right now, then we will reign with him. And then the next one is a future tense. If we should deny him, then he will deny us. And then the last one goes back to the present. a present active if we are faithless. And there's a shift, a change that takes place. Certainly everything here has its center in Jesus. It's our relationship with Him, whether it's past, present, or future. It's with this risen King, the living Savior, the one who came to deal with our iniquities. And it begins with union with Him in His death and resurrection. I want you to think about what this first phrase is saying. Every Christian has died spiritually is what this is saying. If we have died with him, we died in Christ. We were put to death with him. when He laid down His life on that cross. You died to the old man. You died to the old world of sin, to the old ways. Keep your finger here, look back at Romans chapter 6. This is the dynamic for living the holy, the sanctified life, according to the Apostle Paul. As the question turns to why, if we are forgiven of all of our sins, why not just go on sinning? And he responds and says, it's impossible for the Christian just to go on as he was before, because he has a union with Christ, which involves his death and resurrection. to be united to Christ, to be united with His death, and to be united to His rising again. Look at verses 8-11. Paul says, now, if we have died with Christ, there's the exact same phraseology, we believe that we also shall live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, Jesus, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives presently, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. You have died. That's the picture here. That's the encouragement that we take from this passage. Union with Christ means that the old man has been crucified. Nevertheless, we live, and we live by the grace of our Redeemer. You, before you were saved, you were alive in Adam. which means you were dead in your transgressions and sins. And then at some point, sin revived in your life through the preaching of God's perfections in His law, and you saw yourself guilty, and then you died to that old way. You were taken out of that old dominion. In Christ, you've been taken out of the kingdom, out of the realm of sin's dominion, and been brought into the kingdom. of the Son of the Father's love. That's the great translation that has taken place in every single believer. There are only two peoples in this world. Those who are in Adam and are lost, and those who are in the last Adam who is resurrected. who is the head of the new humanity. Paul wrote to the Colossians in chapter 3 of his book, verse 1, Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. That's where you are. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. That is great news. And I hope that that sinks into your hearts and minds. That the old person who loved his sin, who loved to follow the wicked ways, who loved just to please himself, that person is gone. That person is dead. You are not the same person you were before you came to Christ. You are alive in Him. What Jesus did 2,000 years ago outside those city walls of Jerusalem, He did not just for Himself, but as your representative, as a public person, as it were, in your name. You are crucified with Him, and yet you live. The life, as Paul says, that you now live, you live by faith in the Son of God, who has so loved you and has given Himself for you in this way. And notice, as we find elsewhere in Paul's writings, this being engrafted into Christ, into His death and resurrection, the same power which raised Jesus from the dead, that glorious supernatural power by which He is victorious over sin and hell and death, and shows it in His rising again the third day, is the same power that is at work in you. It has raised you from your spiritual tomb and it will raise your mortal bodies at the last day when the trump of God is sounded and the voice of the archangel is heard. What a wonderful, beautiful, powerful picture this is. That your mortality has been swallowed up by the Lord and His powerful grace. Death now is a conquered foe. To die is gain. Everything is reversed. And that's the point of the second stanza. As it says, if we died with Him, we will also live with Him if we endure. That is, if we remain under the difficulties, we will also reign with Him. We live and reign with Christ. We are citizens of a heavenly country, of a city whose builder and maker is God, the new Jerusalem, the Zion which is above. That means that this world in which you and I live is not our home. As John Calvin put it so well in his writings, if our true life is above, then what is this place here below but an exile from home? That's our true home. Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house are many mansions. And so we are anchored towards that. We hunger for that. That's where our true life is, you see. So here's the strange paradox that takes place in the life of the Christian. At the very time that our eyes are open to understand how this world is truly, this creation of God gone astray, we best understand it and at the same time become strangers to it. We can sing as Christians, this is my father's world. And on the other hand, this world is not my home, I'm just a passing through. There's the paradox. I can remember being a brand new Christian, and the light going on, and God bringing me out of my sinful state, and changing my life, and recognizing that the sun in the sky, and the moon at night, and the stars, and everything that He created, all of those things were made by the hand of my Father. My God made this. I am His Son. This world now makes sense. And this world is not my home. I am saved, I am given eternal life, and that's what I long for. That's the dynamic here. So in this world, we are called upon not to always be treated as God's favorites, even though we are, to be acknowledged as God's sons here in this life. You are God's favorites. He has said and done such great things regarding you. He has called you that holy nation, that special people, the kingdom of priests. He has written your name, your very name in his book, and written you upon the palm of his hand. And yet this world does not treat you as heaven's favorites, does it? We see that in very profound ways. So there is an irony in verse 9 and 10, that the gospel is both the reason for imprisonment on Paul's part, and yet at the same time the strength of enduring imprisonment. We will endure all things because of this great gospel that is the very life of the world. So, dear ones, I can make this prediction for you in the year 2016. For every single one of you. As long as it is now, as long as it is in the presence, you will have to endure. This is a present tense now. If we endure, this is a time for enduring. This is a really cool Greek word, by the way. It's a compound word. Hupomone. It means to remain, to abide, to stand up under. We all have various weights that God has placed upon us and by His grace we can withstand these things knowing that there's a purpose in them and that we one day will be relieved and will reign with the Lord Jesus Christ. You will have to endure, but here is the good news. All of your sufferings, all of your trials, are ultimately God-given. They are supervised by a loving, chastening Father over your life. Paul is God's prisoner before he is Nero's prisoner. He suffers for the sake of the gospel before he is given into the hands of a wicked Caesar. And our God comforts us in these things. He gives us the sweetest heavenly grace and strength to endure such circumstance, so as to show himself mighty on your behalf. Nowhere, Christian, do you show forth the grace of God so clearly and powerfully as when you stand faithful under trying circumstances. Anybody can, you know, point to the heavens while they're spiking the football in the end zone. Praise God, right? But when you are losing, when things are going against you, can you still praise God? That's the testimony of the cross. Remember what Rutherford said, I've said it so many times, you're probably sick of hearing it. Samuel Rutherford said that when the Lord put him in the basement of affliction, he looked there for the best wine. Is that what you look for? Most of us look for an opportunity to whine, instead of looking for the best wine. But this verse here points to something which we have to keep a keen eye upon or else we will lose the benefit here. Nothing has ever been taken away from you, Christian, that will not be a hundred times over repaid in the world to come. Whatever good things happen in this life, whatever help you have, these things are not worthy to be compared to what will be revealed when we stand before our Savior. And He welcomes us with those omnipotent arms, brings us into our everlasting rest. He Himself has said, if we give up houses, if we give up loved ones, if we give up whatever it is, He makes up and far more. And we need to keep an eye on that. We could all the time, sometimes just looking at, oh, I've lost this or I've lost that. Don't look at that. Look at what God will repay for all that He takes away. If the Christian is oppressed here, he will reign hereafter. If he has suffered here, he or she goes to a place where all tears are wiped away. If we must endure by the strength of God here, we will then be rewarded by the bounty of that same hand in the world to come. You in these things are sowing so as to reap an eternal harvest. And there must be a connection in our minds between what we endure here and what is ours there. Robert Murray McShane put it well. He said, no pain, no palm. That is no praise, praising palm. No cross, no crown. No thorn, no throne. No gall, no glory. You will have to endure. You will have to suffer. You will have to overcome. Now it's right here where then that we are led not to a promise in the next phrase, but a dire warning, a sure and certain threat. As Paul quotes this faithful saying, if we deny him, that's future tense, if we should deny him in the future, Not we will be denied, but he also will deny us. Christ will deny us. very forcefully. This is a line that's taken right out of the Lord's own teachings in Matthew chapter 10. See the connection? Our treatment of Jesus here is going to have a relationship to his treatment of us in the world to come. in heaven. One of the other gospel accounts has him denying us before the angels of heaven in a very public fashion. You are a goat. You who deny me. What does this mean? Can one who has died and risen with Christ then be lost and rejected in the end? Well, that hardly can be the meaning. There's just a mountain of verses that stand in the way of this idea that we can truly be redeemed, truly be regenerate, truly die with Christ and rise again and be made a new creature and then be lost later. There are so many verses, not least of which is Jesus' own statement, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So what does this mean then? Well, on the one hand, see that the denial here is opposite to truly embracing Christ as Lord and Savior. Somebody who is saved is somebody who has received Him. You are my Savior. I rest in you. I believe upon you. I trust you. You're going to save me from my sins. On the other hand, it seems to speak here that you can make a very bold profession of Jesus, maybe even a very clear profession of Him, and yet what is coming out of the mouth is really not in the heart. We are, as it says in this text, we are to profess Him with our lips. Romans chapter 10 says, if we believe in our hearts and confess with what? Our mouths. There's a connection here. What's here comes out here. But it's possible to have things coming out here, and it's not here. I'm merely professing the truth, but not owning the truth in power. And of course, probably the greatest example of this, we've read from Ezekiel, and read of people who profess to be God's people, profess to be followers of the Lord all the time while they're worshipping idols, and doing all sorts of perverse things, denying the Lord in their works, while professing Jehovah as their God. And in the New Testament, it has to be Judas. Judas who had some profession that Jesus is Lord. One of the twelve. and yet in his heart did not believe." And so here, for the future, here's this warning found in this churchly statement. All who deny Christ, who turn away from Him in a fearful apostasy, truly denying Jesus as their Lord, as their Savior, by their life and by their words, He will deny before all of heaven. For the Christian, this is the greatest fear that we can imagine. since Jesus is at the heart of our very life. Even to disappoint Jesus is painful. How much more a whole soul turning away from Him, which is what is being spoken of here. To deny Jesus here is truly to turn your back upon Him and say, I don't profess to you anymore. I'm not following you any longer. This isn't speaking about the sins that we hate and fight against in our lives. It's something more terrible and more radical than that. And let's face it, all of us sense our disobedience. When I'm disobedient to God, there's a sense in which I'm denying Him, aren't I? If I'm acting in an unbelieving way, I'm denying my Savior. But am I denying my Savior in a sense of saying, I don't want Jesus in my life anymore? That's the difference that's found here from, I think, what we're going to see in the next stanza. There's a world of difference between a sin having dominion in your life, that I'm living for this sin that is denying God. You're living for that iniquity and sin still dwelling in a new and living, believing heart of a Christian. There's a world of difference between those two. That's exactly the struggle that we find in the Christian heart in Romans chapter 7. Paul's saying, the things that I would do, I don't. And the things that I don't want to do, because I know that they're sinful, that I do. There's that struggle that goes on. But there's the better understanding of the last line. carries us, I think, further. If we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself. As I said earlier, there were those who say that this is just an extension of the denial that we just saw. That Jesus, if you deny Him, if you're faithless, He's going to be faithful to judge you and send you into blazes. However, I think there are two things that stand against that approach, that understanding. First, it is not set in the future tense, like the end of verse 12. But it's in the present tense. Alright, here's this fearful apostasy. Here's this denying of God. We have seen people who have walked away from the church, who once had a very loud and proud profession of Jesus. Will that happen to me? Not for the believer. Not for those who are truly redeemed. they will be kept by the Lord. And so, the fear here was, what about my sins? Will my sins catch up to me? Am I under their dominion and so forth? And it seems like this is a relief for the Christian. It's not in the future tense, but in the present. The first speaks of a final, full impenitence, and the last speaks of our struggles with unbelief and not being faithful. And second, nowhere do we find in the writings of Paul, speaking of Jesus faithfully executing his wrath. upon unbelievers or apostates. This term, faithful, however, is one of Paul's favorites to describe the grace of Jesus in keeping his promises to save and to sanctify. George Knight, who is a master in Israel when it comes to the New Testament and Greek, has this to say, speaking about Christ here in verse 12b. It is he who remains faithful. Paul's references to the faithfulness of God and Christ are strikingly uniform. This faithfulness is God's fidelity to his promises, and those promises relate to the positive outcome of human salvation, as in 1 Corinthians 1-9. Paul does not mention God's faithfulness as a basis for the certainty that the faithless will be punished, but as the basis for the assurance of the gospel promises, for safety in temptation, for protection from the evil one, and for the sanctification and preservation of God's people. This understanding is also suggested here by the Greek word mene. He remains faithful. Which with pistos, or faithful, implies that Christ continues as the faithful one in his relationship to Christians. Though they change, and though they become unfaithful to him, he does not change, but has remained faithful to them. The Pauline and New Testament usage also suggests that Christ remaining faithful here also includes His continuing adherence to the divine promises to His people even in the midst of their unfaithfulness. I have another prediction for you. You are going to be unfaithful in 2016. But Jesus will remain faithful to you. That's the picture here in this last statement that we prove untrustworthy. He ever remains trustee says B.B. Warfield. or maybe a far greater authority in the Apostle John. If we confess our sins, our unfaithfulness, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So, dear ones, here see your Jesus promising to be a faithful fountain for life and purity. When, not if, when we sin, when we fail, when we are unfaithful, even unbelieving, He remains faithful. He will not be swerved from His commitment to you to be a faithful God and Savior to your life. But you see here, this is a continued trusting in Him. This is a continued living upon that gospel. This isn't that apostasy that we talked about a little bit this morning in Sunday school class that brings the discipline of excommunication, a spiritual beheading, as we said today. That's what excommunication says. We don't believe that you're A Christian, that's what that church discipline does. We cannot see in you any kind of a just reason to believe that you really believe as you say that you believe. That's what excommunication is about. And even though we said what's different about that is that you can actually come back from that kind of a beheading. The sad state of affairs is that most do not. Most do not. So beware of denying your God. Beware of drifting from the good things of His grace. Go into the new year, brethren, armed with this faithful Savior, assuring you in this fashion. It says here, you will live with Him. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever, said David. You will be crowned by him, as Paul says in his last words in chapter four. In the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. You will be kept from denying him, in that full sense of disowning him. Because he who has begun a good work in you will complete it at the day of the Lord Jesus. No man, says Jesus, no man can pluck you out of my hand, is the promise of his gospel to you who believe. And you will find him faithful to you, and perfectly so. Do you not stand in awe of God's faithfulness? God never fails, ever. He who cares for all of His people, all of Israel, neither sleeps nor slumbers. But He keeps you as the apple of His eye. He never nods. He never fails, in the least. You know, it's not something that we should maybe grow too accustomed to. We should probably be awakened to the realities that our God is never sleepy or sluggish. But what happens is we sometimes grow overconfident and presumptuous in it, don't we? We get so used to his faithfulness, that we don't appreciate it like we ought. May God renew in all of our hearts a greater joy and true believing, an active, lively trust in our great, unchangeable God's grace and goodness. Yes, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. But dear ones, we need to rest in him. We need to be looking directly to him. We need to have him set before us at all times. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we ask that your blessing would be upon the promises of your word. And we thank you, Lord, for this final faithful saying that is to be hidden in our hearts. We pray that we would see that we are new creatures, that the old man has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And Lord, help us, therefore, to live with you, to begin to do so here, and to know that we will do so forever. Help us, Lord, to be able to endure the trials of our lives and the light of an eternal glory of what Jesus will bring about in a new heavens and a new earth. Father, we pray for those who are denying the gospel. We have loved ones. We have family members. We have our own flesh and blood who do not walk in the ways of the gospel. We pray, Lord, that they will not hear those fearful words at the end. Depart from me, workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. Lord, but thank God that you know us, that you have given faith, you have turned from the ways of sin and selfishness, darkness, to the ways of light, according to your word. We love the cross for what Jesus has done for us once and for all. And Lord, that you will always be faithful to your children. May we feast upon that faithfulness. May we relish it and prize it like we should. And may that carry us, Lord, not just into this year, but every year of our lives, that we would be built upon the faithfulness of our God and his word that can never be shaken. Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God, he whose word cannot be broken. formed us for his own abode. We thank you, Lord, that you can cause us to smile even upon our enemies from within such high and immovable walls. Help us, Lord, to explore those walls this evening, the greatness of our Redeemer and his faithfulness. In his name we pray. Amen.