Well, good morning, everyone. As we get started here this morning, would you pray with me? Lord, we're so thankful for the opportunity to open up your word and to hear you speak to us today through your word given to us to bring us strength, guidance, encouragement, direction, your word that convicts and leads, your word ultimately that is designed to transform and change us. pray that you would do that here among us this morning, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, every year in Byron County, Minnesota, the local high school cross country team organized an event called the Two Mile Donut Run. This kind of races right up your alley, I know it. So now, it looks like any other normal fun run, except all along the way, you have to eat donuts. So now why on earth would anyone want to eat donuts while they are running a race? Well, for every donut you eat, they deduct time from your finish time. So if you eat just one donut, they take up 15 seconds off your time, but it increases with each successive donut. Three donuts gets you three minutes off your time. A dozen donuts gets you 24 minutes off your final finish time. So if it takes you half an hour to finish the race, you eat a dozen donuts along the way, they're gonna take 24 minutes off. You finish that race in six minutes. That's your final. If you can cram down two dozen donuts, they will give you 60 minutes of credit towards your race time. It's amazing. We're all going to Minnesota next summer for this race. Now, I wish that the Christian life was like the Byron donut race. I'm not expecting life to be a walk in the park. You still have to run two miles, right? But along the way, you get donuts, and not only that, but you get credit for eating them. It'll be amazing. Sadly, of course, we all know this is not the way that life really works, and especially for followers of Jesus. At least, not if we're gonna take Jesus at his word. He said, if they persecuted you and me, they're gonna persecute you also. In fact, because you are not of this world, therefore the world hates you. That's the race that we're trying to run. Instead of picking up donuts, we're called to pick up our cross, a humiliating symbol of death and failure. This is a race that in the world's eyes, we are all dead set on losing because our values, our principles, our goals are so different than the world around us. Becoming a Christian doesn't give you entrance into the winner's circle, it sets you on a path to humiliation and loss. Success as a Christian may mean complete obscurity in the eyes of the world. A hidden life, out of sight, away from the trappings of fame and fortune and success and glory and honor. Look, Paul was appointed by God as an apostle by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Right, he authored about 25% of the New Testament. He planted churches throughout the Mediterranean. He was perhaps the most famous missionary and church planter in the history of Christianity. But to the Roman authorities, he was a nothing, a nobody. Just another prisoner kept in a dark jail cell awaiting execution like so many others before him. A failure, a zero. There was much to despair of, much to be ashamed of, but Paul somehow managed to stand resolute through it all. And in today's passage, he has a clear message to offer Timothy and to us also. Do not be ashamed of the gospel. That's his message in his words to Timothy today. Do not be ashamed of the gospel. Now, the first conviction Paul wants to impress on Timothy is this, do not be ashamed, but share in suffering for the gospel. Look with me at the text in verse eight. He says, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. To be ashamed for Paul was more than just embarrassment. As one Greek dictionary says, it involved a painful feeling or sense of loss of status. And status was everything. We get a little taste of this today with social media where public Shaming is so common and social status can rise or fall dramatically overnight. That was the culture Paul and Timothy lived in. Social status was built entirely on the externals, who you knew, what you did, what family you came from, what groups you were a part of. The only way to get ahead was to know the right people. There was no such thing as pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. It was more like, Find the bootstraps of someone far above you and try and grab a hold of those and attach yourselves to them. Now in such a culture, associating with a criminal put you on shaky ground. A prisoner had no social capital to offer you, no way to advance in that culture at all. And in fact, associating with the wrong crowd could actually bring great shame to you personally. So we might not think twice about going to visit someone in jail or prison. We might think, well, it's a little uncomfortable, but I'm not gonna get in trouble for doing that. But in an honor-shame culture, visiting a prisoner in jail might indeed bring great shame, not just to you, but to your family as well. It would certainly raise question marks. It was a social cost to pay for associating with those who were deemed to be threats to the status quo. And although Christianity today is a global juggernaut which has shaped the course of the world in profound ways, back then it was seen as little more than a tiny, insignificant Jewish shack which was strangely obsessed with a failed leader who had been crucified by the Romans. For us today, there's, generally speaking, very little loss of social status involved in being a Christian. But for Timothy, the situation was vastly different. And with Paul in prison, facing death, many were trying to distance themselves from this shameful condition. So look at verse 15. Paul says, you are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. We'll never know exactly who these two men were, but clearly Timothy knew them, or Paul wouldn't have called them out by name. They were probably leaders, perhaps even elders in the church in Ephesus, and their rejection of Paul must have hurt him deeply. After all, Paul administered in Ephesus for three years, right? And when he last saw the elders, it was a tearful farewell that we read about in Acts 20. Paul loved these men. He cared deeply for the church, as we saw from the depth of those prayers that we studied in our study on the book of Ephesians. And yet now, in his time of need, when chained up in prison, alone, facing death, they were nowhere to be found. In fact, Paul says, all who are in Asia turned away. Of course, that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but in those moments of darkness and suffering and grief, it can often feel as if we have been completely abandoned by everyone. The rejection of a close friend can feel like a mortal wound from which we will never recover. Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. Nothing is ever gonna get any better. It's never true, but that's what it really feels like in those moments. Even, I think, for Paul. He wasn't afraid of death. He doesn't lose his hope in Jesus Christ. His faith is as strong as ever, but friendships matter, and it hurt to be dropped by the very people he thought had his back, even for someone as strong and confident as Paul. Now Phygelus and Hermogenes stepped away because they were ashamed, so Paul tells Timothy, don't be like these men. Don't shrink back out of fear of social ostracism. Instead, lean into the status-denying heart of the gospel, or as Paul says in verse eight, share in suffering for the gospel. You know, our lives are filled with all kinds of pain and suffering. This side of heaven, our bodies, they're weak, they constantly fail us, right? We have hurricanes and floods and accidents and illnesses that all try to take away our joy. and our peace, but Paul is talking about a very different kind of suffering here. Not that our backaches and illnesses and everything else don't matter or are irrelevant, but the suffering Paul calls Timothy to concerns the gospel very specifically. It's the suffering that comes from naming Jesus as your Lord and savior. It's a suffering that comes from choosing a different set of values, a different set of beliefs, an entirely different way of life. It's a suffering that says, I'm willing to be rejected by this group of popular kids at school because I don't want to compromise my faith. Think about it, social status is so important to kids, especially teenagers, and being part of a particular friend group can mean everything. And so the temptation to pull away, to be ashamed of what you believe, to hide it, to minimize it, can then be incredibly powerful. Because the price you might pay for standing up for what you believe can be very high indeed. Nobody wants to be shunned, or rejected, or left out, or looked over, or pushed to the side. And like I said, even the great Apostle Paul felt the sting of such rejection. But we have an example here of the kind of boldness and courage that he wants Timothy to emulate in Onesiphorus. Look at verses 16 through 18. Paul says, may the Lord grant mercy to the household of Anesphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly, and he found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day, and you well know all the service that he rendered to me at Ephesus. Again, we don't know very much about this man, but we do know this. He stands out because, as Paul says, he was not ashamed of Paul. By extension, he was not ashamed of the gospel which Paul represented either. In fact, he eagerly sought Paul out. He had served and helped Paul extensively in Ephesus, and he often came and sought out Paul in Rome now, in prison as well. Meaning he didn't just sneak in a quick visit under the radar hoping nobody would notice. He regularly sought out Paul to refresh and encourage him. There's a boldness inherent in this behavior. He's obviously more than willing to be associated with Paul, a prisoner. He has no concerns about what kind of social cost this might have for him as a result. So if Paul is urging Timothy to be like an S first and thereby extension us to be like an S first also, then what does that look like for us? I mean, it's easy to post our religious and political opinions online because even if the broader culture disagrees or disapproves, it's always a group of friends around us who will like and affirm what we say. The relational and social cost is not nearly as high as we often think, and boldness is often easier behind the screen. But what about in real life, like with actual other people? How might such willingness to join in suffering for the gospel impact the kinds of people that you choose to spend time with, who you seek out to be your friends, who you sit with on a Sunday morning during the fellowship meal even. How might it change the way you spend your money and your time, your goals, and your aspirations? Paul says, do not be ashamed, but share in suffering for the gospel. Now the second conviction that Paul wants to impress upon Timothy is this, he says, do not be ashamed, but know whom you have believed in. Now I said a few minutes ago that Paul encouraged Timothy to join with him in suffering, but why was Paul suffering? Why was he suffering to begin with? Look at verses 11 and 12. Paul was suffering in prison because he had been appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the gospel. It was Paul's ministry efforts, his work as a pastor and a church planter and as a preacher that brought him so much grief. So a little thought experiment with me here for a moment. Imagine that you're an ice cream truck driver, okay? You cruise around the neighborhoods in the summer, playing music, serving ice cream. It's usually a pretty chill, relaxed kind of job. But now imagine every time you stop, you get hecklers, people yelling at you as you're trying to hand out the ice creams. Some people are waiting in line patiently, eagerly to get these frozen treats, and other people are over here like shaking the van, banging at the windows, trying to pull you out of it, even going so far as to get you arrested. So then you move on to another town, and the same thing happens, and another, and the same thing happens, and there's no way to know anymore what kind of reaction you're gonna get when you start playing that music in a neighborhood. Will it be crowds of happy kids fighting to be first in line or a bunch of angry adults determined to drive you out of business? At some point, would you not consider a change in career? Like maybe this whole ice cream gig, it's not for me. Maybe I should have listened more to my parents and worked harder in school and got like a job in business or something like they wanted. Pretty much any other career, if people are harassing you and heckling you and yelling you and attacking you and even arresting you, at some point would you not think about quitting? So what would possess Paul to keep preaching and teaching and apostling in the face of such constant, unending opposition? And what would encourage Timothy to do the same thing given the dismal job outlook that lay ahead for him? Well, Paul gives an incredible answer to that question in verse 12. Look what he says, he says, I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Paul's confidence was not in his own strength to endure, but in God's strength to help him across the finish line. So the people who step out on that little glass shelf in the Sears Tower downtown, like a thousand feet above the ground, they are convinced that the glass won't crack or break underneath them. And the thrill seekers who dive off bridges with nothing but a bungee cord attached to their ankles are convinced that that bungee cord will catch them as they fall. And closer to home, when you sat down after that last song a few moments ago, you were convinced that that chair would hold you and not collapse underneath you. That's the kind of confidence Paul has concerning Jesus's power to shelter him and to protect him. So how convinced are you concerning God's ability to hold you steady in the midst of the kind of oppression and persecution and suffering and struggle that you should come to expect for following Jesus faithfully in this life? Like when you get passed over for a promotion because you leave the after work parties too early and you don't make the same kind of jokes as your boss. Or when you get looked at funny because you don't eagerly amen the progressive agenda being promoted by your coworkers in the break room. Look, Paul was in prison facing death and yet even in the midst of apparent failure and loss, he remained convinced of God's ability to keep and guard both him and his message safe to the very end. On what basis did he place such conviction of God's ability to protect and guard and help him? We'll look back at verses nine through 10, nine and 10, where Paul explains in detail all that God has done and is doing even now in the lives of his people. Paul tells Timothy, God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. It's this beautiful presentation of the gospel You are here today, Paul says, because God chose you. It's no accident, it didn't happen by chance. It was no lucky happenstance that you just happened to hear the gospel and happened to respond the way that you did. It's not because God saw some great potential in you, like a high school football coach scouting out prospective athletes. No, God chose you according to his own divine purposes, not because of your works, your greatness, but as a display of his grace. Your salvation brings glory to God because it highlights God's boundless love in the face of incredible sin. But there are two aspects of this boundless love which are so important for Paul as he faces execution. The first is at the end of verse 10. Paul says, first of all, Jesus abolished death. He wiped it out. It's been obliterated. Not the physical act of death, of course, at least not yet for the time being. And so Jesus returns. It has been appointed for all people everywhere to experience physical death. but the fear associated with that death, the punishment associated with that death, the uncertainty, the anxiety associated with that death, those have all been wiped away in Christ. Second, Jesus has not just abolished death, but he has also brought life and immortality to light. And that light is not just a sort of spiritual understanding or insight. It's not even really an emotional feeling. The life Jesus has brought into our lives is life without the heavy chains of sin and death and guilt and shame dragging us down and holding us back. He brings release, freedom, healing, hope. Not just one day off in the distant future, but even here and now, today, in this moment, this morning, in the present. This is the person in whom Paul placed his confident trust and assurance, even in chains, even in prison, even in Rome, uncertain of what would happen next. But even there, how could Paul be so utterly convinced? I think it's because these were not just intellectual beliefs that he professed and preached and teached and taught. But these were lived realities for Paul. Lived realities, he personally experienced this for himself. Because the only way to grow in trusting God is by trusting God and seeing him work in your life. You know, maybe it helps to look at this from the other angle, from the reverse side of this. How do we know when we're not trusting God, when we're no longer convinced that he is able to guard and keep us? When fear and anxiety run rampant in our hearts, when we begin to grumble and complain about everything around us, when we find ourselves feeling like everything depends on us when we get impatient, waiting on God to act, when we stop praying, stop reading, stop singing, stop worshiping. In those moments, you see, we have a choice to fan into flame the fear, to fan into flame the anxiety or to release that concern into God's hands and trust that he is able to handle it even if the situation, whatever it is, doesn't end up going even close to the way that we expected or hoped or planned that it would go. Even then, I will trust God. Or when prayer requests seem seemingly to go unanswered and we get tired of waiting for God, we have the choice, am I gonna grumble? Am I gonna complain? Am I gonna get bitter and frustrated? Am I gonna perhaps even begin to take things into my own hands to hurry God up? Or am I gonna trust that God may be working out a plan that I cannot see and I may never fully understand? We are finite after all, right? And he is infinite. Is it not possible, perhaps even highly likely, that he is constantly working out plans and purposes that are so way above our pay grade that we can't possibly hope to understand what he is doing? What right do we have to complain that the Lord of the universe won't share every tiny little detail with us? as if we could even understand it if he did. So this is the path of trust that Paul had walked for decades, choosing to trust God in the uncertainty, in the shipwrecks, in the beatings, in the rejection, in the failure, in the imprisonments, in the moments of being abandoned, even by his closest friends. That's why, at the very end of his life, he could say that he knew deeply intimately, personally, whom he believed in, and he was truly convinced that God could guard, until that day, everything that had been entrusted to him. Now the third conviction that Paul wants to impress on Timothy is this. Do not be ashamed, but guard the gospel. Guard the good deposit. Now while Paul took great comfort in the fact that God was willing and able to guard and keep and protect his life, even through long imprisonments and a potentially painful death, His third encouragement here is for Timothy to guard the good deposit that Paul had entrusted to his care. Look at verses 13 and 14. He says, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Guard the good deposit entrusted to you. And when he says follow a pattern, A pattern is like a design, right, or a template. Think of an architect drawing up plans for a building or an engineer mapping out the electrical systems to go inside of it. The plan is specific, it's detailed, it's meant to be followed carefully and consistently. A subcontractor can't just come along and start putting walls wherever he wants to or designing new rooms or anything like that. They have to follow the plan. In a similar way, Paul is not handing down a loose set of guidelines to be interpreted in whatever rough sort of manner people feel like doing so. Rather, he spent his life passing down a relatively fixed set of doctrinal beliefs, a standard of faith that is meant to be followed closely and carefully. These are the sound words, as Paul calls them, meaning they are true, they are solid, they are secure. They can be trusted, they can be relied upon. These are the words with which he has planted and established churches. These words are the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The glorious truths we just discussed in verses nine and 10. And so Paul commands Timothy, follow this pattern of sound teaching that you've heard from me. I want you to live it, I want you to own it. But this is no mere legalistic adherence to a set of laws, right? Because look what Paul says next. He says, follow the pattern of the sound words you've heard from me in the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. You see, Christians are called to live out their beliefs, but to do so with the faith and the love of Jesus, meaning how you live matters as much as what you believe. In fact, the way you live is the ultimate proof of what you really believe. It's the demonstration of what you really hold to be most important in your life. Because in some sense, what you say and do here on a Sunday morning, it's almost irrelevant in the sense that Look, we're all putting on our Sunday best here on Sunday morning, right? What matters is who we are and how we live the entire rest of the week, starting with the moment you get in your car to leave this parking lot. So I wonder, do your friends, do your family members, See the faith and love of Jesus as the central driving force of your life, controlling your words, your desires, your purchases, your relationships, your conversations? Or do they simply see a wooden adherence to a set of legal requirements devoid of any life, any joy, in fact anything that might truly indicate a genuinely changed heart? Paul says follow the pattern of the sound words, but do so in the faith and love of Christ. But there's a second command in these verses here for Timothy to follow, and it comes in verse 14. Paul tells Timothy, guard the good deposit. This is the gold bullion depository at Fort Knox, or just outside Fort Knox in Kentucky. Reportedly one of the most secure facilities in the entire world, which is a good thing because it holds $290 billion worth of gold. That's like 50%-ish of the U.S.' 's gold reserves. So it's surrounded by all kinds of razor wire and armed guard and the latest high-tech security protocols and they have a granite and concrete vault with massive steel doors and complicated lock mechanisms and a 100-hour time delay entry. Why such crazy security? because that gold reserves is so vitally important to the economy of the entire country. And it's guarded so carefully because the contents are of such high value. Now Paul and Timothy, they don't have an ounce of gold to their names, but the gospel is every bit as precious. In fact, look, ultimately the gospel is far more precious than $290 billion worth of gold. Gold may be of some use in solving financial problems here and now, but it is utterly useless in solving the far greater problem of the massive gulf that separates a sinful humanity from a holy God. Even if you gained access to Fort Knox and all its gold, to what end? What are you gonna do with all that gold? Are you gonna bargain your way into God's good graces? The gospel is far more precious than we can ever begin to imagine. Our lives are so governed and controlled by money and possessions and stuff, it's almost impossible for us to grasp how significant the gospel, a gift the gospel truly is. But it's why Paul was willing to endure such incredible suffering, even to the point of death, because he was convinced this good news was the only news that really matters. and having done all that he could to carefully transmit this message to those around him, Paul now encourages Timothy, don't just follow the pattern I've laid out for you, but guard it carefully. Protect it, fight for it, guard it with your life. There is nothing more significant in this world than the good deposit that Paul had entrusted to Timothy's care. That same deposit that has been passed down through the generations to you and to me also. A deposit that we are called now to guard ourselves, to keep and to treasure and to protect as if it were gold. Because there are enemies of the gospel both without and within. There'll be times when we need to stand up collectively against all attempts to water down or change the gospel or make it less offensive or make it more palatable, more acceptable to those around us. But we also need to guard the good deposit personally for ourselves, honestly from ourselves. because our own lingering sin nature can sometimes be the most insidious of all enemies, leading us astray, able to bypass all our security systems, walking us into sin that we might previously have thought was impossible to ever consider. We are often far better at sinking our own ship than those around us. So guard the good deposit of faith with your life. Remain steadfast, alert, immovable. Spend as much time as you can monitoring internal threats as you do external threats. Ask God to reveal hidden sin. Pray for the spirit to convict you regarding blind spots in your life and repent of behaviors and attitudes that don't bring glory to God. Guard the good deposit, Paul says, and don't let up. Now if all that sounds exhausting, it's because it is. I mean, share in suffering, follow the pattern of sound words, guard the deposit. It's a huge task, a massive job. One that would require every ounce of commitment Timothy could possibly muster up. But the secret sauce behind all of this was actually, had nothing to do with Timothy at all. Timothy was a nice guy, but he wasn't some superhero of the faith. Whatever natural gifts or abilities he may or may not have had, the power was not in his resolve, it was not in his willpower, it was not in his dedication, the power was in God and God alone. Look at verse six, I mean at verse eight. Paul tells Timothy to share in suffering by the power of God and then again in verse 14, Paul says, guard the good deposit by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. These may seem like tiny, almost perhaps insignificant little phrases, but they are the key to the kind of life Paul wants Timothy to live and the kind of life he would want us to live also. Because there's no way that I have the resolve or the fortitude to share in suffering for the sake of the gospel in my own strengths. Maybe for a few days, sure, here and there, but not for the long haul. Nobody likes pain, awkwardness, ostracism. Nobody likes to be left out or passed over. Nobody chooses to be picked last or to get stuck on the losing team. And certainly no one wants to be publicly ridiculed, mocked, persecuted, or arrested. But following Jesus will eventually lead to feelings of shame and embarrassment in a world that is so thoroughly opposed to the ways of God. And so I desperately need the Holy Spirit's power working in and through me. He's the one I can pray to and ask for help. Strengthen me, Lord, through your Spirit so I can stand firm so I can stand firm and unashamed. Help me, Holy Spirit, so I can remain convinced that you are able to guard, not just the gospel, but my very life until that day. Help me, Holy Spirit, to give me the fire in my belly that I need to be resolute in my faith in the face of all kinds of opposition. As we sang a few moments ago, I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path, for my love is often cold, but he will hold me fast. Whatever trials and tribulations, whatever pain and suffering, whatever difficulties God has allowed into my life, He will hold me fast through them all until I meet Him face to face one day in glory. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray for your spirit to equip and to strengthen and to give us the fuel, the fire in our bellies, Lord, to stand firm for you, to not be ashamed of the gospel, but to guard the deposit, Lord, to share in that suffering that comes with following you. with naming ourselves among those who call themselves brothers and sisters of Christ. Lord, help us to follow you through your spirit and stand firmly and boldly as a result. In Jesus' name, amen.