January 26, 2020

2 Timothy 2:14-19: An Approved Worker

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Series: 2 Timothy: Faithful to the End Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:14–19

2 Timothy 2:14-19: An Approved Worker

Please turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 2. If you’re using one of the Bibles we provide, that’s on page 834. We’ve been working our way through Paul’s second letter to Timothy passage by passage, and today we come to 2 Timothy 2:14-19. 2 Timothy 2:14-19: 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. 15 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. 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19 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.” 

If you’re like most people, you have dreams and ambitions and desires for your life. And in most cases, those dreams and ambitions and desires involve making a certain impression on other people. Perhaps you’re stay-at-home mom who feels enormous pressure have an immaculate home and well-behaved children and a slim and trim body in order to make a certain impression on other people. Or maybe your week is spent in the office and you’ve been running yourself ragged not only achieving whatever goals have been set for you but exceeding those goals—no matter the cost—so that you can impress your boss and hopefully be given that promotion you’ve been wanting. Or perhaps you’re single and looking for a spouse and are therefore very thoughtful about the impression you make on the opposite sex. Every picture you post on social media, every way you style your hair, every clothing item you purchase, perhaps even the way you talk or the way you laugh are all calculated to make a certain impression on prospective partners. So as you can see, most people—perhaps even most of the people in this room—devote massive amounts of time and energy to making a favorable impression on others. We want to be “approved” in their eyes. 

Yet I can’t help but wonder how often we give serious thought to whether or not we’re approved in God’s eyes. I mean, surely his approval is infinitely more important than the approval of others, right? Yet how often do we think about it? How often do we concern ourselves with doing what Paul talks about here in our main passage and laboring to present ourselves to God as one “approved”? That’s what Paul says in verse 15. He tells Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed…” That, I believe, is the main idea of this passage and the one that ties all of Paul’s other instructions together. Paul urges Timothy to be an approved worker. Now that word translated “approved” means to be tested and found genuine. It was often used of metals that were genuine or money that was genuine. And there are three characteristics of an approved worker that we find in this passage. Number one, an approved worker keeps the gospel central. Number two, he or she rightly handles the word of truth. And number three, he or she avoids irreverent babble. 

Keeps the Gospel Central

So first, let’s look at how an approved worker keeps the gospel central. Paul tells Timothy 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.” So “remind them of these things,” Paul says. What “things” do you think he’s talking about? Well, it’s probably a good idea to look back at the previous passage to answer that question. And when we do that, we discover that Paul’s been talking a lot about Jesus and the gospel. Imagine that. In verse 8, Paul told Timothy to “remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel.” Then in verse 10, he said, “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.” So in our present passage, when Paul says to “remind them of these things,” that’s what he’s talking about. These truths are truths we dare not forget. They’re too precious to forget. They’re too central to the Christian life to forget. 

We need to be reminded of what God’s done for us in the gospel. That begins with remembering the sobering reality of how sinful and wretched we were apart from Christ. Ephesians 2:12 describes us as “having no hope and without God in the world.” A few verses before that, it described us as “dead in [our] trespasses and sins.” Yet even when we were in that deplorable condition, God loved us. In fact, he loved us so much that he sent his own Son Jesus to come to this earth as a human being and die on the cross to pay for our sins, taking on himself the judgment we deserved. 1 Peter 2:24 states that “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” Then, three days later, Jesus demonstrated his power as God and his legitimacy as the Messiah by rising from the dead. And because of that, he’s now able to save everyone who looks to him for rescue. In the words of Hebrews 7:25, “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.” This is the message we as Christians believe and through which we’ve been saved and by which we’re filled with a never-ending passion for God. That’s why Paul tells Timothy back in our main passage to “remind them of these things.”

You know, some of you think that you can’t be very useful to God because you’re not a studied theologian. You haven’t been to seminary, you’re not familiar with the original languages the Bible was written in, and you’ve never read any weighty theology books. So you think that you can’t really do that much when it comes to ministry and helping others grow closer to God. But here’s what you have to understand. The vast majority of ministry doesn’t require any of those things. It simply involves reminding others of the fundamental truths of the gospel and helping them see how those truths connect to their lives and how they should live in light of those truths. And that’s really good news because it means that you, as an “ordinary” Christian without any formal training, can have an extraordinary impact on the people around you as you minister to them with the gospel. You just have to do what Paul says and “remind them of these things.” And by the way, it’s not just younger Christians who need these reminders—it’s all of us. That’s why Peter says this in 2 Peter 1:12: “So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.” So even Christians who are “firmly established in the truth” still need to be reminded of it. In fact, they need to “always” be reminded of it, Peter says. And that’s what Paul tells Timothy to do in our main passage as well. 

And along with that, he goes on to say in that same sentence, “charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.” In other words, there are a lot of things that just aren’t worth arguing about—secondary or even tertiary doctrines that shouldn’t consume our attention. For example, are the so-called “miraculous” gifts for today or are they not? Is Jesus coming back before or after the millennium? Or even, did Adam have a belly button? Guys, I’m really not sure if Adam had a belly button or not, but I do know this: Jesus has given us a mission. And that mission is not “Go therefore and spend endless hours arguing with each other until you iron out every single theological difference on even the most minute matters.” Rather, that mission, as we well know, is to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” That’s what Jesus has left us here to do. So I’m not at all saying that theology is unimportant. We’ll see in a few moments that it’s actually very important. However, I am saying that there comes a point where debates about secondary or even tertiary theological matters are a liability for our mission rather than an asset. That’s why Paul tells Timothy to “charge them before God not to quarrel about words.”

I mean, just imagine with me for a moment that someone’s house is burning down. And not only is their house burning down but their children are trapped inside. So the firefighters are alerted and arrive on the scene, but instead of trying to rescue those children or even put out the fire, they’re arguing about how to arrange the furniture at their fire station. How crazy would that be, right? Hopefully no firefighters have ever or will ever do anything like that. Yet that’s not all that different from what Christians are tempted to do sometimes by spending countless hours debating relatively minor theological issues while people all around them continue to get closer and closer to a Christless eternity. That is a tragedy. Now, by the way, I’m not talking about theological discussions. You can have very fruitful theological discussions about various matters that are conducted in a spirit of love and gentleness and that help everyone involved understand more about the Bible. I’m not talking about those discussions. I’m talking about theological debates, where people are exclusively focused on convincing others that they’re right rather than trying to edify and serve and love others.

And not only do these kinds of silly theological debates cause us to waste valuable time that we should be using to spread the gospel, they also, according to Paul, actually cause positive harm to those who involved in them or even those who hear them. Again, Paul says, “charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.” That’s what these quarrels do—they ruin the hearers. And I believe they do so in three ways. First of all, these quarrels often cause those who are involved in them to overestimate their own spiritual maturity. They’re tempted to think that, just because they can form sophisticated arguments about obscure theological matters, they must be really mature spiritually. As 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, their knowledge puffs them up. And not only do these quarrels ruin those who participate in them, they also ruin the younger Christians who may be listening because these quarrels lead them to think that that’s what the Christian life is about—gaining theological knowledge so you can sound really smart. And then, thirdly, these quarrels also ruin the non-Christians who hear. Instead of seeing Christians living lives that commend the gospel, these non-Christians see them living lives that contradict the gospel. They claim to believe in love and grace, but they can’t seem to find any for each other. 

So, with that in mind, I’d like to give you three questions to ask yourself whenever you encounter another Christian who believes something that you disagree with. Because the fact is that there are certain issues that are worthy of a dialogue—provided, of course, that this dialogue is conducted in a spirit of love and grace and humility. So how can you discern what issues do need to be talked about and distinguish them from those that don’t? Three questions that I’m simply going to list: Number one, how clearly is this issue addressed in the Bible? Number two, does this teaching really pose a significant threat to the gospel? And number three, to what degree will this teaching actually bring harm to the church? Think about those questions before you make a mountain out of a molehill. 

Rightly Handles the Word of Truth

Then the next characteristic of an approved worker is that he or she rightly handles the word of truth. Paul writes in verse 15, “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.” And it’s very important for us to take these words to heart lest anyone get the impression from what we’ve talked about so far that theology is in any way unimportant. Paul says that we need to do our utmost to ensure that we’re “rightly handling the word of truth” in our ministry to others. That phrase “rightly handling” translates a word that literally refers to cutting a path or a road in a straight direction. That, of course, involves removing trees and any other obstacles that stand in the way of the path or road being straight. The goal is for the traveler to be able to go directly to his or her destination. And that’s what we’re called to do as we teach the Bible. We’re supposed to cut a path, if you will, that’s straight and that will enable the person we’re teaching to correctly understand what the original author of the biblical passage was trying to say. We don’t want to turn to the left or to the right but rather lead the person we’re teaching down a straight path toward the original author’s intended meaning.  

You see, there are two ways to approach the Bible. You can approach the Bible with you as the authority over the Bible or with the Bible—and by implication, God—as the authority over you. Obviously, the appropriate approach is to allow the Bible to be the authority and to let it shape your thinking and mold your heart and, in that way, humbly submit your will to God’s. That’s what we should do. Yet how easy it is, even as Christians, to get things backwards so that, instead of allowing the Bible to shape our thinking, we allow our thinking and our biases and our desires to skew our interpretation of the Bible! Essentially, we twist God’s words to say what we want them to say—even if we’re not always very aware that we’re doing that. Maybe there’s a certain sin in our life that we’re trying to justify or a belief we hold that’s not really biblical. So we twist God’s Word to make it say what we want it to say. But just imagine for a moment someone doing that with your words. Perhaps a reporter interviews you for something you’re a part of or something that you saw, but when the article’s published and you have a chance to read what this reporter actually wrote, you see that he or she took your words out of context and twisted them in all sorts of ways. How would you feel about that? Or suppose you have a conversation with a friend of yours about a sensitive subject, but that friend—or supposed “friend”—then turns around and tells all these other people that you said things you actually didn’t say. They put their own spin on everything. I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t appreciate that very much. In fact, you’d probably be quite upset. So why would we think it’s okay to handle the Bible that way? Why would we think it’s okay to extract from the Bible any meaning other than the meaning God intended through the human author? 

Now we all sometimes make mistakes in our interpretation, so don’t beat yourself up if you’ve gotten it wrong sometimes. Everyone has. No one except Jesus has ever interpreted the Bible perfectly all the time. But when you approach the Bible, just make sure that you’re approaching it with the mentality that you want to hear from God. You want to hear what God has to say, not just an echo of whatever thoughts or preconceived notions might be floating around in your mind. 

And, by the way, if anyone wants to learn more about sound principles for Bible interpretation, I believe this book will be a significant help to you. It’s called Journey into God’s Word by two guys named Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays. Or an even better option is to attend our very own Redeeming Grace Institute, taught by Pastor Kevin, which will be starting up again on February 16 and will take place over there in the teachers’ lounge before our Worship Gatherings each week. And both this book and the Institute will explain in a lot more detail about why it’s so important to focus on the original author’s intended meaning. Both of them will also help you develop greater skill in observing different features of the Bible and any given biblical text. Every word of the Bible matters. Every word is in there for a reason. Every word has a meaning. So it’s important for us to understand words and grammar and syntax. In addition, we also want to take into account the literary context of a passage. Both this book and the Institute will teach how to do that as well. Whenever you read a verse in the Bible, you want to know what comes before it and what comes after it. What’s the flow of the passage? What point is the author trying to make? And not only is there a literary context to consider, there’s also a historical context. What’s the purpose of this book of the Bible? What was going on in the life of the author or in the lives of the readers or just in society in general? What was the culture like? What covenant did all of this take place under? These are all questions we need to consider in order to do what Paul tells Timothy here and “rightly handle the word of truth.”

And the nice thing is that when you learn these principles, you’ll also be able to tell if other people are using the Bible well. Because the unfortunately reality is that not everyone who uses the Bible or quotes from the Bible is actually teaching the Bible. Many supposed preachers and teachers that you see on TV and the Internet sadly don’t rightly handle the word of truth. Just because they’ve got a big church, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re handling the Bible well. But when you understand how to rightly handle the word of truth, you’ll be able to not only do that in your own life but also discern when others are doing that and when they’re not. 

Avoids Irreverent Babble

Then, moving forward, we also see the importance of rightly handling the word of truth in the next few verses, as Paul expands on that idea and tells Timothy to avoid irreverent babble. That’s the third characteristic of an approved worker. He or she avoids irreverent babble. Look at verses 16-19: 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. 19 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.” 

Now notice how Paul says this “irreverent babble…will lead people into more and more ungodliness.” False teaching always causes ungodly living. That’s because it doesn’t have the power to sanctify, and it’s usually not designed to do that anyway. Instead, it’s usually designed to permit sin. And unfortunately, it often spreads like wildfire. Look what Paul says. He says in verse 17 that “their talk will spread like gangrene”—like a deadly disease or a cancer. That’s the pace at which false teaching spreads. Kind of like how they say that bad news travels a lot faster than good news. Have you ever heard someone say that? Well, it’s the same with false teaching. It always seems to travel faster and be more readily embraced than biblical teaching. Thankfully, as Paul says in verse 19, “God’s firm foundation stands.” Another translation says, “God’s solid foundation stands firm.” Biblical truth will ultimately prevail over false teaching because it has the power of Almighty God behind it. 

Conclusion

So as you think about your life, just ask yourself whether you’re living as that approved worker. Are you keeping the gospel central, rightly handling the word of truth, and avoiding irreverent babble? Will you be able to receive God’s approval when you present yourself to him one day? 

You know, so often, we’re forced to choose between God’s approval and man’s approval. We often can’t have both. For example, I was reading an article in the New York Times last week by a university professor named David Bentley Hart arguing against the idea of hell. And not only does Hart say the idea of hell is a backwards idea, he says that those who believe in hell are backwards as well—both philosophically and even morally. Elsewhere, Hart refers to those who believe in hell as “infernalists,” and accuses them of being viciously vindictive, exquisitely malicious, and ostentatiously absurd. He speaks of the doctrine of hell as degrading nonsense and also uses words such as “ridiculous” and “abominable” and “genuinely odious.” He also makes that claim that anyone who believes in the doctrine of hell lacks a properly functioning moral intelligence. So it seems like this author, published by the New York Times, goes out of his way to be as insulting and condescending toward Christians as he can possibly be. And that’s just one example among countless examples we could give of the scorn heaped upon Christians and Christian beliefs in our society. And it’s happening more and more often as time goes on—which means that we have to choose between man’s approval and God’s approval. 

That’s why I appreciate what Paul says in Galatians 1:10. He writes, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” In other words, you can only serve one master. So if you’re serving man and “trying to please man,” Paul says you’re not serving Christ. So each one of us this morning stands at a crossroads. We can’t avoid making a decision about this. Whose approval will you seek? Who will you serve as your master? 

Because here’s the thing: whenever you make your life about pleasing people, they, in effect, become your master. You actually become enslaved by them and controlled by them far more than you probably even realize. For example, just think about something like the clothes you wear or the vehicle you drive or the house you live in. How much of that is influenced and even driven by a concern for what other people think about you? How much money do you spend on things just so people will think highly of you or be impressed by you? How much of your life is spent obsessing about what other people think? Like I said, a lot of times, we do it so much that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

So when Paul instructs us to make our lives all about pleasing God, he’s actually offering us liberation. He’s showing us how we can be liberated from our obsession with pleasing people and instead focus our attention on pleasing God—who, by the way, loves us with an unconditional love that’s beyond anything we can imagine. I mean, how much simpler would our lives be if we just focused on pleasing God and presenting ourselves to him as one approved? You see, the fact is that you will be mastered by something. Something will be your master. Yet God is the only Master who will never oppress you or exploit you or be a tyrant over you but will always seek your good even as he seeks his own glory. As Psalm 84:10 says so well, “No good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly.” “No good thing does [God] withhold from those who walk uprightly.” So let me encourage you to be that approved worker. Let it be your ambition to live in such a way that when you stand before God at the end of your life, he says you the same thing that a master in one of Jesus’ parables says to his servant: “Well done good and faithful servant….Enter into the joy of your master.”

other sermons in this series

Apr 19

2020

Mar 15

2020

2 Timothy 4:6-8: Finishing Well

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:6–8 Series: 2 Timothy: Faithful to the End

Mar 8

2020