Good morning, everyone. Good morning. We will be continuing where we left off in 2 Timothy a couple weeks ago. But before we start, let's go to a word of prayer. Father, we're grateful once again to be gathered in this place, to be gathered with the people of Christ and to worship Christ together. Father, even as we've just sung, you have provided for us a firm foundation, one that will never shift. Father, you've provided us protection through the midst of everything that might come in life. Father, you have provided that in Christ who has become our rock of shelter, our cleft in the rock. He has become the stone on which we stand on. He is the one who rescued us from the pit, Father. He is the one who has saved us from our sin. He is the one who has given us a place before you. He is the one who has granted to us an inheritance and wanted from you. And Father, because of that, you have lavished your kindness on us. You have welcomed us before your throne. You've even welcomed our praises. Father, the fact that we got to sing together this morning is a great gift from you. And Father, we have enjoyed that. We desire to come and to worship you this morning. And Father, that's what we want to continue to do as we come to read your word, is to come with hearts of worship to see more of what Christ has done for us and to rejoice in what Christ has done for us. And so Father, I pray that you would give us the ability to see rightly what is in your word. Help us to see clearly the things of Christ as we meditate on your word. Help our hearts to rejoice in what we read. Help our wills to submit to what we read. Father, that your word would not go forth and come back void, but would bring about its desired purpose. So Father, we pray that your spirit would be here in our midst to be bringing that about. Father, we need your spirit to enlighten us, to help us to understand correctly and to enliven us. to make us respond correctly as we hear it. Father, I pray that you'd fill me with your spirit as well as I come to preach your word. Father, I pray that you would guard my words, make them true and glorious of Christ, make them beneficial to those who are here listening. In Christ's name we pray, amen. So we've been in 2 Timothy for a few weeks now. we've actually gotten through the first half of the book. And so we went through the first half of the book and saw these exhortations to Timothy to be strengthened by the gospel. But before we jump in and keep going where we went on 2 Timothy, I wanna go back and think about our summary statement. My summary statement for the book of 2 Timothy is this. 2 Timothy tells us that serving the gospel is hard. Serving the gospel will be hard, but it's always worth it. So keep pressing into Christ. Serving the gospel will be hard, but it's always worth it. So keep pressing into Christ. And then, like I just said, we kind of split the book into two halves. We said there's six major exhortations that happen in the book. The first three go together, the second three go together, and so the first set of exhortations are all to Timothy, and they're to Timothy telling him, you need to be strong, you need to be strengthened by the gospel. And so Paul exhorts him. We saw that his first exhortation was when Timothy was burned out in the ministry, he says, Timothy, you need to fan into flame the gift of God. And he told him to do so by remembering what God had done for him. And then we saw a second exhortation. Paul told him to not be ashamed of the gospel, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel of God by the power of God. And then we saw a third exhortation, which has been a long time unpacking, but then he looks at Thomas, and this was the master exhortation of that section. He says, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And so we thought about, what does it mean to be strengthened? We thought about that for several weeks. But that ended the first half of the book of 2 Timothy. So now we're gonna get a change in tone as we go into the second half of the book. The first half of the book looks at Timothy and says, Timothy, you need to be strengthened by the gospel. But then the second half of the book says this, once you've been strengthened, take that gospel and keep serving that gospel. I wish I would have changed my words up here. I should have said, be strengthened and be strong. That would have been a great way if I would have thought for it. But be strengthened by the gospel and then be strong with the gospel, we consider the two halves of the book. And so we're going to start that half this morning. We're going to see an exhortation. We're going to see an exhortation in this section, which is, I paraphrase, do your best to be approved. We'll look at that as we go through there. So we're not actually, we're gonna spend a couple weeks on this exhortation as well, so we aren't gonna cover the whole exhortations. The rest of chapter two, I think, is that one section. I'm just gonna do through verse 19 this morning. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and pull them out and open to 2 Timothy 2. I'll be reading verses 14 through 19. Or if you would like, I have the text up here on the screen. So 2 Timothy chapter two, starting in verse 14. Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. but avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some, but God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. So as we look at these few verses this morning, this is gonna be my proposition, my main point. It's kind of an introduction to the second section with a start of what is this first exhortation about. But looking back, Paul has already encouraged Timothy to make the gospel his strength. So having encouraged Timothy to make the gospel his strength, Paul exhorts Timothy to be diligent to be a faithful servant to the gospel. He exhorts Timothy to be diligent to be a faithful servant of the gospel. Make sure you are handling God's word faithfully. I'll split this up into three main points this morning. First, we're going to look at remember and remind. Remember and remind. As you recall, you might recall, we talked about the word remember a lot as we've gone through 2 Timothy. We're gonna look at that word again, because it's gonna come up again at the beginning of this. Then we're gonna look at a faithful messenger. What does it mean to be a messenger who is unashamed? Then we'll make some brief applications of our passage at the end. So we'll start with remember and remind. This will be kind of the introduction to the second half of 2 Timothy, and we're gonna start in 2 Timothy 2.14, we're gonna notice that the tone changes quite a bit as we enter into 2 Timothy 2.14. So far throughout 2 Timothy, Paul has been talking to Timothy, and he's been giving him really personal exhortations. Now, exhortations that we can listen into and learn from, but they've all been really personal exhortations to Timothy. I'm talking to you, Timothy. These are the things that you should do, Timothy. But then we come to 2 Timothy 2.14, and he says, remind them of these things. All of a sudden, we have a new audience. I'm gonna talk about that audience in a minute, but now he's saying, no, Timothy, That's good, you've had a lot of encouragement. Now, go and remind them of these things. The first thing that I notice is we come back to that word remind. That word remind or remember has been used over and over again throughout 2 Timothy. We go back and remember, we'll remember. It started the first section. We saw in 1 Timothy 1, three through seven, I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. So the first section started with this exhortation to remember, and then it also ended with an exhortation to remember. We finished this a couple weeks ago in 2 Timothy 2 in verse 8. It says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel. And so remembering was the book ends of the first section when Paul looked at Timothy and said, be strong in the gospel. He told Timothy, remember all that Christ has done for you. Remember the core of the gospel and make that your own. And then we start the second half of the book, and he goes back and says, guess what? Remembering is still going to be important. Remind. But now it's gonna be instead of you remember, Timothy, these are the things that you need to remember, he's now gonna say, remind them. Remind them of these things. So Paul's taken the first half of the book and said, Timothy, you need to remember the core of the gospel. Look back at what Christ has done for you. Look back and remember who Jesus is and what that means for you. Remember all these things about the gospel and let that be your strength. And once you have been strengthened by those things, let that overflow and remind everybody else too. Those things are for them as well. So he says, remind them. of these things. So what things is he talking about? I'd say in the broad section, he's saying everything that he's talked about in the first part of 2 Timothy. Remind them of these things as well. If those things are good for you, are gonna strengthen you as you go through ministry, they're gonna be good for everybody else as well. That's a great defense for why we should preach 2 Timothy if we're turning to elders. Paul said to Timothy, go ahead and remind everybody else about these things too, because they're good for everybody. But I think in a particular way, he's referring to what just happened. He said, Timothy, You remember, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So when Paul says, remind them of these things, I think the most particular thing he's thinking of, the thing that he wants Timothy to take forward to his people is those, the first and the beginning and the end of that paragraph. The last time he said remember was remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel. He said, fill yourself up with that, Timothy, And then make sure you're taking that to your people as well, that you're putting forth Jesus Christ, the offspring of David, risen from the dead, as preached in my gospel. And I think he's also taking that saying. He said, here's a trustworthy saying. Here's something that you can remember. It's even almost put to verse or to song. It might have even been an early song that they would have sung. It's hard sometimes to tell what would have been sung and what's just Paul kind of writing in a poetic manner. But at least there's some chance that this could have been an early song he's saying. Teach them this song. Let them learn these words. This saying is trustworthy. For if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He says, teach them that. If that's good for you, Timothy, if that's going to strengthen, encourage you, and push you on into ministry, that's also going to strengthen, encourage your church, and push them on into Christ. And so he says, remind them of these things. And that's going to be the tenor of the second half of the book. That's really the big change between the first half and the second half. The first half says, Timothy, you need these things. The second half of the book says, if you need these things, your congregation needs these things as well. So make sure the first thing you do is strengthen yourself with these things. But once you've been strengthened, go out and strengthen others as well. And so we could say something like this. You need to remind yourself of the gospel first and draw your strength from the gospel. Timothy, that's the core. But then you need to remind others also of the gospel and its implications. You're going to fill yourself up with the gospel, and then you're gonna bring the gospel to the people. We could say at the head of the second part of the book, Paul tells Timothy, okay, you're a little burnt out. Here's the strength you need. The strength you need is gonna come from the gospel, and I'm gonna build you up with that. But then he goes, and here's the thing, Timothy, your job is to go teach that to other people. Your job is to point others to the gospel. Remember Jesus Christ, remember him for yourself. Remind your people about him as well. And so the second half of the book starts, we've done remember, and now he says remind, remember and remind. That brings us to our second point. If you're thinking that, wow, Matt's gonna have a super short sermon this morning, because we're flying, the second point's a little longer, but we'll split that up. It might be a little bit short, but not as short as you might be thinking. But we have a second, okay, now we have remember and remind. And Paul's gonna look at Timothy and say, but if your goal is to remind others of the gospel, you better be a faithful messenger. You better be one who's not needing to be ashamed of what you're doing. So we just had 2 Timothy 2, 14. He says, remind them of these things. Your job is to fill yourself up with the gospel and then to proclaim the gospel to others. But then we have an immediate question. Okay, great, excellent. How are we going to do that? And that's gonna be the answer of the rest of this paragraph. Actually, the rest of this chapter is gonna be answering that. Okay, we're supposed to remind them of these things. How are we gonna do that? I'm gonna split this up into like four portions, and I'm gonna skip over the rest of verse 14. I'll come back to that in a second, but I wanna get the positive in first, then we'll come back to the negative. And so, we're going to look at, for the rest of this paragraph, to point others to the gospel, what must we do? So to point others to the gospel, first, we must teach the word of God faithfully. We must teach the word of God faithfully, which I'm gonna say is going to be knowing doctrine, and representing it well, knowing doctrine and representing it well. So in verse 14, remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Then there's almost this instead, but it's not written in the text, but instead what should you do? Instead, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. So that, I think, is the first major exhortation of the second half of 2 Timothy. Timothy, here, now that I'm sending you back, you've been strengthened, and I'm sending you back into the fight, here's the first thing you need to do. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. So the emphasis there, I think, on the last portion, I'm gonna pull all of it apart, but I think the emphasis there is on the last portion. You need to be rightly handling the word of truth. If we look at that, that rightly handling the Greek word is literally to cut it straight. It means to make a straight cut across something. And so if we think about what does it mean to cut straight the word of truth, I think we could say something like this. You need to be able to correctly use the Bible as the basis of your teaching. being faithful to what the Bible says. When you take the Bible, you're gonna cut it straight. You're gonna go through and say, this is what the Bible says. I'm confident that this is what the Bible says, because I know what the Bible says. And so we could split this up. If someone is going to rightly handle the word of truth, they're gonna need to do at least two things that I think about. I think that first, they need to know what the Bible says. And so Paul's telling Timothy, do your best to do this. to rightly handle the word of truth, you need Timothy to know what the Bible says. If you don't know what the Bible says, you're not gonna be able to correctly cut it for someone else. And so we could apply this to a lot of different things. Obviously preaching, as I stand up here right now, I better be correctly cutting the word of truth, otherwise I'm in a little bit of danger as I come up here and teach. But it applies to all areas of ministry. You need to be able to take and know what the word of God says so that you can apply it to all sorts of different portions of ministry. So first, know what the Bible says. And then in whatever way that you're speaking, whether it's in preaching or in other areas of ministry, say exactly what the Bible says. Know what the Bible says, say what the Bible says. Rightly handle the word of truth. Cut it straight. Don't, and that's going to be the flip side of this, is don't wander off into other things. Don't wander off into myths or genealogies or your own personal opinions or Anything else, know what the Bible says, say what the Bible says. So elders and teachers, Timothy, you need to make sure you know what the Bible says, and then say what the Bible says. If you fail at either of those, if you go ahead and say things, but you don't know what the Bible says, then you aren't correctly cutting the word of truth. Or if you know what the Bible says, but you just say something else, you're not correctly cutting the word of truth. You need to know it and you need to say it. So I think we can look at lots of places to help flesh this out, but I think Titus 1.9 does a great job with this. This is part of the qualification of elders in Titus. So this is the end of the qualifications. He's given several moral qualifications, but then he finishes with this. must hold fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching. So that's that first portion. He needs to know, be able to grasp and hold on to what the gospel says, what the scripture says. So he needs to hold fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching. and then he needs to be able to bring that out so that he can, in the positive sense, teach that, say, this is what the Bible says, and I'm confident this is what the Bible says, so he can exhort and sound doctrine, and he can look out and say, just a second, what you're saying wasn't right. It doesn't match what the Bible says, so he can refute those who contradict. So when he says, Timothy, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved to work or who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. I think he's thinking about that. Know what the Bible says. Say what the Bible says. Don't get off of that. That needs to be the core and the foundation of your ministry. And so then he's going to say, if you do that, then you're gonna be a worker who is approved, one who has no need to be ashamed. With the flip side implication being, if you're not correctly cutting the word of truth, if you're going based on your own personal opinions and ignoring what the Bible says, or you don't even know what the Bible says, or you're doing something else other than correctly cutting the word of truth, then you ought to be ashamed. You're not promoting Christ, you're promoting yourself or something else. He says if you work hard, to correctly cut the word of truth. Know what it says, say what it says. Then you'll be a worker who doesn't need to be ashamed. You can be confident in your ministry and you can put Christ before your people. And he starts with this, do your best. That actually, I think in the ESV, it's a fine translation, but it's like pulling your punch. It's actually a really strong word, like be zealous, be diligent, work hard. It's like an emphatic command. Timothy, guess what? This isn't gonna be an easy task. This is gonna be a hard task, something that takes effort, something that takes work, Something that takes study and time, but do it. Work hard, be zealous, because you do first need to know what the Bible says. So you're gonna need to put in that time of study and knowledge. You need to know the Bible from the beginning to the end and know what the message of the truth is, so that you don't go off and start teaching your own thing without knowing what the Bible says. And then when you teach, you're gonna need to be able to say, I know what the Bible says, and I'm gonna correctly and faithfully represent that. That's going to take work. So he looks at Timothy and says, guess what? I'm strengthening you, but I'm strengthening you because I'm sending you back in to do work. Work hard, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. And so, something like, be zealous, be diligent, work hard. Think, another place we can see this is just back in 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy, Dan went through this. We saw in chapter four, verses 13 through 15, this is Paul's earlier exhortation to Timothy. He says to Timothy, until I come, Devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and teaching. There's this idea of, well, Timothy, you gotta focus on this. Do it. Get in it. In fact, don't neglect the gift that you have. This isn't something that's just going to flow out of you like you don't have to work for it. You need to tend it. You need to make it bear fruit. It's like a garden. You need to go work in your garden and tend your garden so that your gift bears fruit. You can't just go out and believe that you can teach. Work hard so that you know what's going on. So he says later, practice these things. That idea, do it over and over again. Do it over and over again. Get better at it. In fact, make it so much what you're working hard at that other people would say you're immersed in that. He's just always in the Word, and he knows the Word. He knows it backwards and forwards. Immerse yourself in it. In fact, other people should be able to see it, because all are going to see your progress. That's the idea that Paul's telling Timothy. Told you that before. I'm gonna give you some encouragement and some strength, and then I'm gonna tell you it again. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of truth. So we come back. We have to look at that phrase too, though. It says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. And he says, Timothy, you need to correctly cut God's word. That's gonna take diligence and hard work if you're gonna do that, but also you need to remember who is your real audience and who is your real judge. The reason why this is so important is because you're not presenting yourself to your congregation as one approved. There's maybe some reason for that to be good, but that's not your audience and that's not your judge, is whether your audience thinks that you did a good job. Your audience is God. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. You need to be able to say honestly before God, God, I did my very best to understand your word and to correctly state it to others. I'm not convincing everyone else I know it well. I'm doing it honestly before you. I've read your word, I know your word, and I've taught your word, God. The reason that's important is because we'll see in other places that when you stand up and teach, you are in a little bit of a dangerous position, because if you don't do that, you're gonna be misguiding people, pointing people towards other things. So James will tell his readers, not many of you should become teacher's brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. So he says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Timothy, here's your first task. Make sure you're teaching scripture faithfully in all aspects of your ministry. It's gonna take work, and you're gonna have to do that before God. That's how you're gonna remind people of the gospel. So at first, how? Well first, we need to teach the word of God faithfully. Then second, Paul's gonna say, a contrast to this, probably not the only contrast to this, but a contrast to this, and a contrast that must have been plaguing or facing the Ephesian church is this, refuse to argue about secondary minor things. Refuse to argue about secondary minor things. So this is gonna come back to that phrase that I skipped over in verse 14. He says, remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. So Paul doesn't flesh that out much. He's kind of assuming Timothy clearly knows what's being talked about. He'll come back to that in a minute again. But he says, here's two things. There's on the one side, you can work really, really hard to make sure you know the scripture and you're gonna be able to faithfully tell your congregation this is what scripture says. On the other hand, you can get really into doctrine and like to quarrel about words. And I think there's a fine line between those two, and sometimes it's a little hard to define, but I think we can all think of places where we've seen that, where people are like, you know, they're really, really into doctrine. It seems like, whoa, buddy, maybe you're working too hard. I wouldn't say that, actually. hmm, settle down, maybe, you know? They just get really, really into minor secondary doctrines and run with them and want to argue. They're often marked by being argumentative. If you don't agree with me on all my little tiny pet doctrines, then we're gonna have problems and I'm going to educate you on what the Bible says. Paul's kind of giving a contrast. He says, Timothy, work hard to know what the Bible says, because you're gonna be required to stand up and faithfully proclaim the gospel to your congregation. By that, I don't mean, Be this guy who's really argumentative and likes to nitpick the fine details. You need to know it so you can apply it to real things in your church and keep the gospel before your church, but not the guy that likes to nitpick the details. Charge them, and he actually says this very strongly, charge them before God, not to quarrel about words. which does no good, it only ruins the hearer. I think we can all see that, too. When somebody comes and likes to argue about doctrine at that level, nitpick the fine details, and just have arguments and debates and all these discussions about these really little time points of doctrine, and sometimes you're like, well, what does that even matter? I'm not sure even the Bible says clearly anything about that. Then he says, that's not promoting godliness. In fact, it's just ruining the hearer. The end result of that is not to promote glory to Christ, and to push your congregation towards Christ. It's not helping them to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David. In fact, it's just distracting them from Christ and running into these academic little fine detail sort of situations. So that's, he says, be diligent to know the Word of God, but that doesn't mean Be really, really strict about all the fine doctrines and like to argue about things. Those are two opposite things. Being diligent to know the word of God is not being somebody who likes to argue about the fine details. So, we need to teach the word of God faithfully. That doesn't mean arguing about secondary, minor things, quarreling about words. He also is gonna say this. You shouldn't have anything to do with unbiblical musings. Just step there and say, you know what? I'd like to think about these things that aren't in the Bible, or go beyond the Bible, or say what is in my own thoughts about these things. So we come, he said, remind them of these things, charge them before God not to quarrel about words. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. Then in verse 16 he says this, but avoid irreverent Babylon. but avoid irreverent babble. Now again, that isn't a lot said about what is irreverent babble. We kind of have to construct it. We get a little bit of it from Hymenaeus and Philetus down in a few verses. Although I also want to say, what happens with Hymenaeus and Philetus, Paul's pointing at the end of this pathway, not the beginning of this pathway. He says irreverent babble will eventually lead to what Hymenaeus and Philetus are saying. So that's not the end result. So we need to think about what is irreverent babble. But first I wanna actually look at this. It says, all right, maybe I don't. Okay, so what is irreverent babble? There's only a few parts where Paul uses that word avoid, and one of them is actually in Titus as well. We come to Titus three, he says a very similar thing, but instead of just saying irreverent babble, he's gonna flesh out what sort of things are irreverent babble. So in Titus three, nine through 11, he says this. but avoid foolish controversies. Kind of the same thing he was saying before, you know, just arguing about things to argue about things. Avoid foolish controversies. Genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. He says, when you're going off, instead of being careful to correctly cut the word of God, that you're just pointing towards, as it would say in Ezra, to make the meaning of the text plain for everyone to see it, If you're going to run off and say, you know what, I'd like to really immerse myself in some of these things and get really caught up and go beyond the Bible in these things so we can make long genealogies and try to do these things or foolish controversies, then that's a person that's going after irreverent babble, unbiblical musings, going past or beyond what the Word of God says. So when he says, avoid irreverent babble, I think that's what he's saying. He starts off in saying, don't get caught up in the minutiae details, and also don't go beyond what the Word of God says. And irreverent babble, kind of just unbiblical, beyond the Bible musings. And think about those things. He said, Timothy, know the word, and limit yourself to the word. So avoid irreverent babble. Why not get caught up in these beyond the Bible or extra musings, arguing about these things that aren't really taught in the Bible? He says, well, again, the result is not that it will lead people into godliness. In fact, what they're gonna grow in, in the Greek, they're gonna grow into more and more ungodliness. As they start to step off the Bible, they're gonna step farther and farther and farther off the Bible until they have left the pathway of godliness. And that's what we see with Hymenaeus and Philetus. They started with these irreverent babble, these musings, these, okay, well, let's start thinking about what these things could mean and start reconstructing things. And they ended up saying, the resurrection has already happened. There's no future resurrection to look forward to. Have your best life now. You've already been resurrected. I think the purpose of their statement was, go do whatever you want. The resurrection's already happened. You're in the best glorified state you're ever going to be in. the resurrection has already happened. And so they swerve from the truth by stepping out of the Bible that led them to completely leaving the truth. And as they did that, they started to teach others and others got drawn into these unbiblical musings and eventually they upset the faith of some. So he says, Timothy, be careful. Be careful not to step beyond the Bible at all. Because when you do so, that's not a pathway that leads to Christ. When you step outside the Bible, that's a pathway that's gonna lead to your destruction and those who listen to you, it's gonna upset their faith. So we need to teach the word of God faithfully. That doesn't mean arguing about secondary minor things. It doesn't mean going beyond the Bible with unbiblical musings like I need to add to this, I need to add my own thoughts, my own thing, my own interpretations, just say what the Bible says. Then fourth, I struggled in how to phrase this, so we'll see if this works, but fourth, If you're going to remind others of what Christ's done, you need to be confident in God's work. This is gonna be looking at verse 19 as we come to it, and I'll just make a statement here at the beginning. I'm gonna go over verse 19 this week, and I'm gonna go over verse 19 next week. So if it feels like I completely missed half of what verse 19's saying, I'm intentionally missing exactly half of what verse 19's saying, and we're gonna come back later, so don't get too worried. I wanna look at what verse 19 is saying back And then next week we're gonna look at what verse 19 is saying forward as we go through 2 Timothy. But as it looks back, why does he put it here? And that's my question. Why does he say, but God's firm foundation stands? So he said, look at Hymenaeus and Philetus. They started with these irreverent babble, unbiblical, ungodly musings, and it led them to completely deny the truth, and they took people with them. In fact, as we look at this, this is probably one of the reasons that Timothy got burnt out, said, you know what? People are running after these unbiblical teachings and I can't win. It's upsetting the faith of some. So Paul says, yeah, they are upsetting the faith of some. But don't worry about that, Timothy, because here's the truth. God's firm foundation stands. God's firm foundation stands. So what does he mean by God's firm foundation stands. I think it could mean at least two things, and I think one of them becomes clear at the end. We could say he's looking back at the gospel and saying, okay, people can run off and say whatever they want about the message of the gospel and get off into all sorts of untruths, but God's gospel isn't ever gonna change. God's firm foundation stands. But then the second thing I think it means, and that's where Paul goes with it, is those who are truly in Christ aren't gonna be carried away. Those who are truly in Christ are not going to be carried away. He says, God's firm foundation stands. Yeah, this is where that unbiblical musing is leading to. That's why Timothy, you really, really can't get involved with it. But also don't let the fact that others are being led astray by that unbiblical musing. cause you more trouble or cause you to be discouraged in your ministry because, Timothy, know this, God's firm foundation stands. Then he says, actually, we know that God's firm foundation stands because it's been stamped and sealed. It bears this seal. He says two things which I think are rough quotes out of the Old Testament. He says, God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal. let everyone who names the name of the Lord, I'm sorry, the Lord knows those who are His, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. So let's start with that first one. He says, this is how we know that God's firm foundation stands. First, it's because the Lord knows those who are His. So just within the text, we can say, Paul's saying something like this. Timothy, yes, there are gonna be those who run after false teaching. When they hear false teaching, undivisible musings, they lead into untruth, There are going to be people who run after them. But don't despair, because those who are truly Christ are going to stay, because the Lord knows those who are his. He's not going to let his sheep wander off and leave the fold. So Timothy, yes, mourn over people who leave. It's not good. It's sad. It's terrible. But know this, the ones who stay are the ones who are Christ. God's firm foundation stands bearing the seal. The Lord knows those for his. But like I said, I think this is also an Old Testament quotation. It actually comes from Numbers chapter 16. So Numbers chapter 16, I had that read this morning to refresh ourselves about the story. This is the story of Korah and Dathan and Abiram, the Levites who decided, you know what? We don't like that Aaron's in charge. We'd like to be in charge ourselves. Why make Aaron in charge? Why make Moses in charge? And Moses goes and challenges them and says, God will show who he's chosen. We get this story about how they come and they present themselves before God, and Quorra and Dathan and Biram are very aggressive and blatantly reject Moses, but they get swallowed up by the earth, demonstrating that God had chosen Moses. But it's not exactly the quote out of the Hebrew Old Testament, but actually this quote is exact in the Septuagint, which is pulled into where we are, and so we find it here in number 16. It says, Now Korah the son of Izar and Kohath, I'm sorry, son of Izar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses with the number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, you have gone too far. Why do you exalt yourself above the assembly of the Lord? When Moses heard it, he fell on his face, and he said to Korah and all his company, in the morning the Lord will show those who are his. and who is holy, and will bring him near to heaven." That phrase at the end, when Moses looks at Korah and Dathan and Abiram and says, here's the thing, guys, the Lord will show those who are his. That's what Paul's pulling out. He's taking the Septuagint translation of that, pulling it out and stamping it here and says, Timothy, don't despair. You might have big uprisings like Korah and Dathan and Abiram. You might have people running off into things that will lead to their destruction. But remember, that happened to Moses too. That happened to all sorts of servants of God all the way through history. But God always ended up showing those who were his and those who were not. Those who were holy and those who were unholy. So Timothy, don't despair. They won't win any more than Korah and Dathan and Abiram win. It might not be as surprising and breaking into the world like Korah and Dathan and Abiram, but they're not gonna win any more than they did because guess what, Timothy? The Lord knows those who are his. don't despair when false teachers run off. So that's the first seal, the Lord knows those who are his. But then he comes to a second seal. It says, bearing this seal, the Lord knows those who are his and, Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." That's actually going to be the springboard into the next paragraph. So I'm not going to talk about this intensely. I'm going to come back and unpack a lot more out of this. But I also just want to point out that this is a rough quote, or maybe we better call it an allusion, out of the Old Testament. But the reason I can be really confident it's an illusion out of the Old Testament is it's an illusion out of the Old Testament from the same story. It comes back to the end of number 16. The beginning of number 16, Moses said to Korah and Dathan and Abiram, the Lord will show those who are his and who is holy. And at the end, we have them, Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram, they don't listen to Moses, they say, you know what, we really think we're right, and we're gonna take those censors, and we're gonna stand in front of our tent, and actually, we're not even gonna obey your instructions, Moses, we're gonna do it our own way. And Moses says, well, okay, here's the thing, if those guys die like everybody else dies, then that's true, they can do whatever they want, but if they die by being swallowed alive into the earth and going down to Sheol alive, then you'll know that God sent me. We come to Numbers 16, 25 to 27, it says, Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram and the elders of Israel followed him, and he spoke to the congregation. Depart. Oh, wow. Here we go. Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins. So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones. So the story started with the Lord knows those who are his, and the story ended with the congregation running from the tents of Korah and Dathan and Abiram. I love Moses. Moses has been having a hard day. He's really been having a hard several years trying to lead the people of Israel. He's been having a hard day, but I love, he goes, Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch none of theirs, lest you be swept away with their sins. He's very polite. But he says, you know what? Get away from those things. If you go into those things, you're gonna get swept away. And that's what we come back. He says, remember number 16. Those people who run away from Christ aren't gonna win. The only danger is if you go with them. The people who run away from Christ aren't gonna win. The only danger is if you go with them. So the Lord knows those who are his. Don't despair when people run after false teaching. Instead, Timothy, just guard yourself. Don't have anything to do with that irreverent babble. In fact, that avoid is actually a really strong word. It's like a shun, stay in the loo from, don't even give it a hearing. I don't wanna be around that. That's not belonging to me, no. Avoid that irreverent babble, because you want to get away from the tense of Korah and Dathan and of Biram. And the Lord knows those who are ahead. The people who listen to you as you teach the faithful word of God are the ones demonstrating that they're of Christ. And so that's why I finished that, be confident in God's work. Looking back, he's going to say, you need to be faithful to teach the word. There's going to be people who like to quarrel about words. There's going to be people who like to have these unbiblical musings and run beyond the word of God. But that's not gonna lead to anything except ungodliness. They'll get destroyed. And don't despair of that. Just stand away from it. Stand away and be faithful to the word of God. So that's where I wanna end today. I'll start next week with 19 as well because I think there's a lot more to unpack out of that verse. But I wanted to wrap this up with that thought. So coming to applications, this'll be pretty short, but I just wanted to say what things do we need to do as we read through this passage? So I'm gonna have four applications this morning, just thinking through what does this passage call us to. The first is this, the chief responsibility of elders and teachers in the church is to remind the congregation of the gospel. I don't mean that in a shallow sense, as though, well, you should just stand up and quote the basis of the gospel every single week, exactly word for word the same, but your chief goal is to be pointing towards the gospel of Christ and making sure that your congregation is running into Christ. The chief responsibility of the elders and teachers in the church is to remind the congregation of the gospel. So elders should focus on that. Make sure that's what you're doing and you're not running off after other things. And the congregation should insist on that. If your elders start going off into other things and being either people who like to quarrel about words and we start bringing messages that are all about things that seem to be completely secondary to the gospel and we want to really, really find them out or go beyond the scriptures and start talking about our own opinions, our own thoughts, you should challenge us and say, just a second, that doesn't seem to be what the gospel's about. Why are you pushing us that way? So elders should focus on that. The congregation should insist on that. That's our chief responsibility in the church. So because of that second application, it's elders and teachers, and I put in parentheses, and those who aspire to be elders, teachers, and those who might one day be in that position should devote themselves to studying the Word of God. Elders and teachers need to be in the Word. They need to know what it says, because they're going to be called to say, thus saith the Lord, in a variety of different situations, either standing up here and preaching to the congregation, or as situations come, and we need to say, this is what the Bible says. If we don't know what the Bible says, then we're going to get it wrong, and we're going to mess things up. It says, no, you need to devote yourself, devote yourself, put in effort, be diligent to study the Word of God so that you know what it says, and therefore can use it correctly to lead the church. And the congregation should insist on that. You should look at your elders and say, devote yourself to the knowledge of God's word. Devote yourself to understanding that. Don't get caught up in other things. Don't get distracted from that by their missions. Make sure you know what the Bible says. Third, elders and teachers should be careful to say, only and exactly what the Bible says. Don't go beyond and add your own opinions, your own thoughts. Don't go ahead when you don't know what the Bible says. Don't misquote the Bible. Don't force the Bible to say what you think it ought to say. Make sure that you're very careful in your role as a teacher and elder to say only and exactly what the Bible says. Cut it straight. Cut it straight. And the congregation should insist on it. And then finally, fourth application, all believers should be on the lookout for foolish, ignorant controversies. Things that run beyond the Bible, things that we're arguing about don't seem to be anything to do with the core of the gospel that seem to draw us away, that seem important, but in the end distract from Christ. Paul says, those things are gonna come up. People are gonna be given to a reverent battle. Timothy, you don't do that. Don't lead your people into that. Stand away from it. So we ought to be on the lookout for those. They're always gonna be different. They're just gonna be random things that come up that people want us to run after that go beyond the Bible. It's kind of like counterfeiting. Usually the study isn't on what do all the counterfeits look like? Know what the gospel says that you can know. No, that seems like you stepped beyond or you went beyond what the Bible said. You say, nope, don't want anything to do with that. So we should be on the lookout for those. Are there things that are coming, even things that are coming into this church that we would say, oh, just a second, that seems like it's going beyond the gospel, going beyond the clear teaching of the word of God, and so we shouldn't give that a hearing and say, we should be on the lookout for those. So those are my applications for this morning. Kids, here's your kids' question. What is the main responsibility of elders in the church? And it's this. They need to seek to know the scriptures very well. Elders and teachers need to seek to know the scriptures very well so that they can point to and rightfully apply the gospel. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightfully handling the word of truth. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. Father, we're thankful for the encouragement that Paul wrote to Timothy thousands of years ago. told him to look at the gospel again. Father, I pray that as we finish that section, that all of us would take another look to look at the gospel again and make the gospel our strength. Father, I pray that as we study this passage, Father, that our church would be diligent to make sure that the teaching and the exhortation from the elders, from the teachers of this church is Correctly cutting your word is correctly pointing your father I pray that you would strengthen those of us who teach you lead in the church to be able to do that well Pray that you would give us the time and the motivation the effort the diligence to go search that out father I pray that through that you would be building your people up in Christ father our goal from this is that Christ would be honored and glorified that we would be able to point to him clearly