Good for our worship to be from the heart. No doubt that was from the heart. 2 Timothy 2, in our Bibles this morning, we serve a Father who is ever faithful, ever true. He calls us to be faithful men, faithful women as well, of course, and faithful young people. As we address primarily the men this morning, invite our ladies and young people to see that these texts do apply, of course, to you as well. And you can also look for ways to cultivate these values and recognize and praise these values in your father, your husband, brother, or son. 2 Timothy 2, starting in verse 1, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. and the things that thou hast heard of Me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." Important for the health of the church and the advancement of the Gospel faith that we have faithful men who are taking the truth that God has entrusted through us, through His Word, through various ministers of the Word, passing that along to others and living that out in our lives. Just about a month ago, our challenge to the ladies was to serve as lady pillars in the church. We looked at several examples of those who had a pillarly influence as first century female believers, people from Roman 16 like Phoebe and Priscilla, Trifona and Trifosa and Mary and some others. that are highlighted in scripture as having a very important role. And so after that message, one of our male members said, with a message like that and examples like that in scripture, our ladies are going to leave us behind. And so I said, well, just wait till Father's Day. Here's our chance to catch up and be stirred up and be mindful of our role, place in the church. God has ordained that faithful men would hold a primary responsibility in promoting and advancing the health of the church. That's not because God loves men more than women or women more than men. We'll talk a little bit more this evening service time about the beautiful plan that God has designed for gender roles in the church. But let's continue reading here in 2 Timothy chapter 2. We want to read verses 3 through 7. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for the masteries Yet he is not crowned except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding in all things. There's a simple outline on the back of your bulletin if you care to follow along with some blanks. We see here three illustrations that are It's quite straightforward that Paul gives one after another of what a faithful man ought to look like. And one is a soldier, a faithful man ought to endure like a soldier with committed focus. That's in verses 3 and 4. Verse 5 encourages us that a faithful man ought to strive like an athlete in compliance with the rules. And then in verse 6, The faithful man is one who works like a farmer with an eye on the blessing of harvest. And then in verse 7, Paul simply says, consider these things. Think that over. Think about this triad of analogies. And I love how The Holy Spirit inspired Paul. Paul, he's a man's man. He's been through a lot. And the Spirit inspired him to use these analogies that would be timeless. in the way that men in particular, I would have to say, can connect with these. When verse two says, entrust to faithful men, sometimes mankind, humankind, all men have sinned. These male terms are used for the whole race and context tells us which is which. And again, there's application in this passage for all of us. Maybe in a special way for men, and these analogies are ones that I would say men in particular can connect with. A soldier. So look at your father, your husband, your brother, your son, and isn't it true that he is innately wired to be ready to physically fight when necessary? and sometimes when unnecessary. There's that fighting spirit. My son loves to play fight with me. He loves to play fight with his sisters. He loves to real fight with his sisters. If someone comes after his sisters, though, he and I will both real fight with those attackers. There's a soldier in every man. An athlete. Something we can relate to. Hey, as guys, From about the time we can walk fast, we become very concerned with who's the fastest, who's the strongest, who can jump the highest, competing. And just watch a group of kids at recess, and the girls might be able to say to the guys, look, you're failing three subjects, and you left your backpack home, and your penmanship is illegible, and most of your lunch is on your shirt. Boy says back, well, that may be so, but look how high I can jump. There's an athlete instinct in every man. And then a farmer. We've become less and less of us, percentage-wise, have to be employed in farming compared to old times. And yet, dads or moms, those with a son, how old was he before he started digging in the dirt? It doesn't take long. Guys, the dirt, it calls to us. And ladies can't understand that, but when guys see rich, dark soil, there is an inquilable voice inside us that says, get as much of that as possible inside your fingernails. Girls don't have that. It's innate. I don't know about your daughter, my daughters weren't born loving tractors, my son was. And even though, guys, maybe you would say, well, I don't relate to all of these. I don't think I've ever been cut out for farming, yet there is a farmer in every man. We do believe that God has attached, as he gave us, In our birth, our identity, our genders are from God and He has attached to that certain innate instincts. Maybe you won't experience all of them to the same level, but that men have in a way that women don't. So the Bible is very rich and deep, right? Very many complex truths in it. And men, we want to be careful, you know, we don't want everything to, we don't want to give up and say, well, that goes over my head. Never have that posture. The Bible wants all of us to be theologians. And men in particular, I want to challenge you, be one who is a lifelong student of the word. The Bible instructs that if you're married, you ought to be able to answer your wife's questions at home when she asks things about spiritual truths and scripture. And of course, ladies, we want you, once again, to be strong in the word as well. Man, verse 15, reminds the man of God to study, to show himself approved, to be able to rightly divide the word of truth. So we want to dig deep and understand complex truths. And yet here what we have is just three straightforward analogies, not deep, not complex. You don't have to dissect any one of these verses and say, well, I wonder what he really means. How is this connected with what he's saying? No, it's all very straightforward. So here's Paul who we've seen in Ephesians can go on 200 word sentences without a break that each clause of which you try to identify how it subordinates or supports the others and how these thoughts are attached because it's densely packed with doctrinal truths that are intricately related. And yet the same Paul can give us three simple analogies and then say, consider what I say. Think it over. God knows how to give us his truth in a way that even a caveman can get it. You like to fight? Fight for God. You like to compete? Do it for Jesus. You know that desire within you to cultivate the earth? Farm for a heavenly harvest. Think about that. Think it over, and our prayer is that God would give us understanding in each of these. So let's take a few minutes and think about each of these three analogies. First, for the soldier, if we are going to endure hardship as a good soldier, of Jesus Christ, we're going to have to have committed, submissive focus on what we are called to, what we are enlisted for. It's easy to forget that we are enlisted men. How many have served in the military, men and women? We have several here in our congregation. We thank you for that. You know that when you are active duty military, that is what all your life is centered around, right? And so when we, as believers, get entangled with the civilian affairs, if you will, of everyday life, it's easy to forget that we are enlisted as soldiers in the Lord's army. It's easy to give inordinate affection and attention to temporal things. It's not wrong to get involved in earthly pursuits. But when we get entangled, we have a problem. So when my driving focus is one more piece for my man cave, one more tool for my garage, one more lure or rod for that next big catch, one more stroke off my Golf game one more percentage of yield on my interest interest on my investment one more upgrade for my truck one more Win to get my favorite team over the hump one more gadget for my home theater one more earthly thing Nothing inherently wrong with any of those Yet, they can easily entangle us so take that soldier who is on foreign soil, in a tour of duty, in a place where there is warfare, he is not to wake up and decide, I'm going to go off to town today and I think I'll see about apartments that are for rent. As the other soldiers are assembling for morning exercises, he's looking for furnishings and decorations that he might fill that apartment with. And as those soldiers assemble and travel to their next checkpoint, this one is off filling out applications at local shops. That's not a good soldier. He's become entangled in civilian affairs. So would your say your spouse your child or an objective observer of your life who observed you for a stretch of let's say a month be able to discern here's someone who's a soldier in God's army. They are an enlisted man whose primary focus is on heavenly things, on spiritual things. And yes, they're involved in earthly things because it's not that we remove ourselves from that. Our earthly responsibilities take a lot of our time and energy and resources. But would the objective observer have to say, here's someone who's entangled with earthly things. What is your committed focus centered on? Maybe Timothy, as Paul gives these instructions, is a young man who is struggling to be strong, struggling to be courageous. Maybe Timothy is finding himself getting timid when it comes time to share his faith or to take a stand on issues that are counter-cultural when the Bible conflicts with society. Maybe he's shied away from those aspects of ministry that would be hard or would involve sacrifice bring opposition from the world. Chapter 1 in verse 8, Paul has to tell him, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, but be partaker of the afflictions of the gospel. And so we understand it is hard to be a soldier for God. As in Timothy's culture, it's hard today. And that phrase in verse three, endure hardness, does imply suffering. Really, the language there has to do with hardness is the idea of suffering, going through hardship, difficulty. We're tempted in many ways. We face a lot of burdens, a lot of pressures, and there are discouragements, and there are temptations, and being faithful does involve suffering. Ask a combat veteran what it's like to be in a battle. You'll find that he or she does not use words like fun Comfortable. Or easy. Why would we, enlisted in the Lord's army, expect our Christian walk to be this way? So men, women, young people, but men, hang in there. Be strong. Be courageous. Be bold for Christ. Fight the good fight. Endure hardship in ministry. Declare war against Satan. Shield your family from the corrupting, toxic influence of the world. And we do it all to please our commanding officer, right? Verse five, we don't entangle ourselves with the affairs of this life, why? A good soldier doesn't do that, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. Our focus is on our commanding officer, if you will, our superior, the Lord of our army. It's not about the glory of battle. It's not about being a hero. It's about laying down our lives to serve the one who has enlisted us. So just as a soldier would never get involved and tangled in civilian affairs, neither would a good soldier receive a command from a superior officer and say, well, that's one idea. Yeah, I see how that maybe would have worked in a different age or a different culture, but for my life and my position where I'm at right now, I really think it's going to work better for me to take this other approach. Yeah, I acknowledge your command and all, but I'm going to do what I think is best. Of course not. 1 Timothy 1, verse 18, war a good warfare. 1 Timothy 6, 12, fight the good fight of faith. Ephesians 6, 11, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand against the wiles of the devil. Be a good soldier. Consider these things. Think about that. Faithful men strive to be an athlete and strive like an athlete in compliance with the rules. This past spring, two players for the Detroit Lions were caught betting on the outcome of sports games, strictly prohibited by the NFL. And so when this was discovered, both of these men were suspended for the entire coming 2023 season. And the Lions immediately released both of those players. They lost their jobs. Some of you know about the famous baseball player Pete Rose, who at the time of his retirement is baseball's all-time leader with 4,256 hits. But as a manager of the Reds, he bet on the Reds to win repeatedly, and when that was discovered, resulted in his being banned from baseball for over 30 years and counting, and he's been kept out of the Hall of Fame. In 2019, Olympic officials determined that the Russian Olympic team had been condoning systematic doping of their athletes for restricted performance enhancing substances And the discipline for the Russian athletes resulted in 48 medals being stripped from Russia's Olympic teams. They were not allowed to compete under the Olympic flag for the next two years, a national disgrace. And then just a couple of months ago, a Scottish ultramarathon runner, an ultramarathon I guess is a 50-mile race. She was disqualified from the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race. Though she finished in third position, race officials determined, with help from global positioning technology, that this runner had used a car for part of the race. So she was, of course, disqualified. They apparently became suspicious when she logged a 1 minute, 40 second mile. You look at each of these cases and say, why would they do that? Look at the cost. Look at the disgrace. Look at what is lost. And the only answer can be they thought it would put them ahead, and they thought they would get away with it. In the spiritual race, you can't cut corners. On the path to faithfulness, there are no shortcuts. Though there are probably people cheating that haven't been caught. When it comes to life's race, our official, our judge, sees everything. And he implores us to strive for the mastery, but to do so in compliance with his divinely revealed mandates. Some of us, men and women if we're honest, would have to look at our lives and admit, overall I think I'm following God. 45 of those 50 miles of that race. But really, I'd have to admit that there are some areas of my life where I know I'm transgressing the rules, the boundaries, the guidelines, the regulations that God has given to me. And some of those I have thought if I just ignore those or take a softer approach with those, it will put me ahead in some way. We'd have to get a medal taken away. Spiritually speaking, loss of reward, spiritual discipline would be involved in. the just judgment from God. What if we were able to adopt a competitive, goal-oriented focus on how much we love God, about how well we serve Him, about how devoted we are, about how actively we abstain and battle against sinful influences, patterns of thought, ways of speech, behavior? Think that over. Consider these things. And maybe there's someone here who no human judge has caught on to you. Everyone looks around and thinks you are a faithful person. But in reality, in your heart, there is not a saving relationship with God. that you, though someone might look and see you and it looks like you're on the podium, the reality is that you have skirted around and gone another way that is not the straight and narrow path that God has set. And Jesus says, I am the way. Jesus says, I'm the door. He says, I'm the gate by which you come into the fold. There's a way that's straight and that's narrow and it's few that find that one. He says, no man comes to the Father but by me. and you have managed to look right and talk decently and uphold a fine reputation, but you're not even on the right track. You've gone your own way and you've never been born again. Don't wait till judgment day for that to be revealed. He who strives for the mastery to obtain that crown of life must do it in the specific way that God has prescribed. And that way is through His Son. Stop going your own way today. You can't get there some other way. And even if it looks like you have, the truth will be revealed. If any man does not have Christ, the wrath of God abides on him. You must be born again. Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The path of faithfulness, there are no shortcuts. No one slips under the radar having got away with taking an alternate route. This is the race that matters. You might have some great game film from your high school days. You might have some pretty impressive trophies or scorecards that you've saved, hung on to. But this is the race that matters. Here in a couple chapters, 2 Timothy 4, Paul will remind Timothy that bodily exercise profiteth little. But godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is the race that matters. 1 Corinthians 9. Verses 24 and 25, so run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. That coveted Olympic laurel leafy crown that fades away with time. that so many sacrifice so much to obtain that momentary glory pales in comparison with the crown of life that doesn't fade away. This is the race that matters. Think about that. And then finally, the farmer. And the picture here is one of work. And it's a work that is attached with the hope of harvest. We're working like a farmer with eyes on the blessing of harvest. Have you ever spent time on a farm? Anybody here grew up on a farm? A few hands. Okay, so I don't know anything about it, but some of these people would probably tell you, and I've heard it described, you know, get up at four o'clock, milk cows, collect eggs, feed the chickens, bale the hay, mend the broken fence, slop the hogs, break up the ground, plant the seeds, and by that time you're ready for breakfast. Hard work. Being faithful is hard. It requires endurance. When it's not easy, and you don't feel like it, and you don't even see any immediate fruit. First you've got a seed and now it's buried and it looks like you've got nothing. but continue to work, continue to endure, continue to strive. The farmer, verse six, must be first partaker of the fruits. There is a harvest coming. There is a time when the fruits of your labors will be recognized and enjoyed, and you lay those burdens and tools down and hear, well done, good and faithful servant. The reward God gives is better than anything this world offers. Can you believe that? If you want to be faithful, a faithful man, you've got to have faith. And faith is believing that God is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The heavenly harvest is better. God's provision for you, even in this earthly life, is more sustaining and fulfilling than anything this world offers. So, this is straightforward. Not hard to understand. But as we consider these things, as we think it over, this is hard to do. It's hard to be a farmer. It's hard to be an athlete. It's hard to be a soldier. How could I ever be all three? And the answer we read pretty quickly. It's in verse 1. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The strength to endure like a soldier. The strength to strive like an athlete. The strength to keep working and working and working like a farmer. We could do it in our own power for a little bit, but that's not faithfulness. A steady, stable, plodding, unfaltering commitment day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year of the faithful man comes only from a strength that is fueled by the grace of Christ Jesus. Well, how do I get that? It's through relationship. As you commune with God daily, as He speaks to you through Scripture and encourages you and instructs you and corrects you in the way. As you speak to Him through prayer and cast your burdens on Him and look for His sustaining grace. as you commune with His people. An iron sharpens iron. And you use your spiritual gifts to minister in my weaknesses, and I use mine to minister to yours. And we encourage each other so much the more as we see the day approaching. God gives grace through these things. And in that grace is strength to endure hardship. as a good soldier, to strive for the mastery like an obedient, compliant athlete, and to work for the harvest like a hopeful farmer, so that your life is the life of a faithful man. A faithful woman, a faithful young person. Be a faithful man so that at the end of your life, if you haven't been faithful and there are some things behind that need to be confessed, need to be repented of, need to be made right, and once that is done, you forget those things behind and press on toward what's before and say, I can't change yesterday, but from today on, I want to be By the strength that comes from God's grace, I want to be a faithful man. I want to get to the end of my life and be able to say with Paul, in chapter four, in verse seven, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day. and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." Consider these things. Think it over. And may God give us understanding in all things. Let's ask for His help.