II Timothy 2:1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus
I recently bought an automobile from my local Ford dealership. It is not brand new, but it is new to me. One of the things I originally was going to pay for, until I got it knocked off, was Icon, which gives the location of my vehicle on an app. If my car is stolen, I can literally turn my car off remotely from the app on my phone. That sounds great, but then I started thinking, “Well, if I can turn my car off, couldn’t someone else?” Maybe you think, “That’s a little paranoid.” My reply would be, “Maybe you have had your head stuck in the sand.”
Someone has recently said, “There is no need for conspiracy where interests converge.” So, if the intelligence agencies, the ruling class, and the media all had the same interest in lying to me or accruing power to themselves, there doesn’t need to be a Mr. Big from whom they are getting their orders every day. No, there are commonly held interests that converge. In your life, there are interests that converge against you, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The worst way to choose in your life is not to choose. Passivity is the worst way in the world to decide what you are going to do and where you are going to head. To think, “I’m not going to take sides” is taking sides. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered by the Nazis just before the end of World War II, said “Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” In other words, not choosing is the worst way to choose.
When you get to II Timothy, you find a number of contrasts. First, whom will you endure and whom will you please? You are going to endure something and you are going to please someone. There is coming a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine, the truth. By contrast, if you embrace the truth, you need to be willing to endure the pushback that comes from that. II Timothy 2:4 says, “That he may please him who hath chosen him.” So, a believer, like a soldier, needs to please the commander, the Lord, and not merely people around him. You can’t please everyone. So, whom will you endure and whom will you please?
Whom will you be ashamed of and whom will you be approved by? Verse 15 says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” I’m either going to be ashamed of God and His truth or I’m going to be ashamed of sin and falsehood. In verse 22 it says, “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow after righteousness.” I am to flee and to follow. I can’t flee and follow the same thing at the same time. I’m either fleeing or following.
So, what we are essentially saying here is that wisdom is rightly choosing what you will endure and whom you will please. Galatians 1:10 says it this way, “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” You are serving the one you are trying to please. That is almost a subconscious way of thinking, “Whom am I really serving?” Well, the answer is you are serving the one you are trying to please.
Am I trying to please the people on Twitter? Am I trying to please my peers, my pastor, or God? Now, if I am pleasing God, presumably I will please the leadership in my life, and that is wonderful. But I need to realize I am accountable to God. In Hebrews 11 it says that Moses chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.” Moses realized that the worst he could expect with God was better than the best he could expect from Egypt.
What I choose determines what I lose. If I want to lose weight, I’m going to have to choose to eat things that I might not prefer. If I am going to lose the wrong kind of influences in my life, I am going to have to choose the right things. So, wisdom is rightly choosing what you will endure and whom you will please. There is a conspiracy against you, not some grand governmental conspiracy, but just a convergence of interests between the world, the flesh, and the devil.
So, why should you choose the truth and God? First, because God will win. Paul says in II Timothy 2:9, “Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer.” He was not just doing right and suffering for it, he was doing right and being accused of doing wrong and suffering for it. He goes on to say, “Even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.” A couple of times Paul asked people to pray that he would have an open door of opportunity to give the gospel where he was when he was incarcerated. He did not pray for another open door, another opportunity, or an open prison door. He prayed for an open door to give the gospel where he was. That is a prayer God answered.
Paul was imprisoned and he was winning people there because the love of Christ and the power of the gospel will win. God will win. You are going to have to choose something, so choose God and the truth because God will win.
Second, choose the truth because God is faithful. In verse 13 he says, “Yet he [God] abideth faithful.” He cannot deny himself. If you are in Christ, you are part of God’s family, and God will not deny Himself. He will not deny you.
Today, are you living a life of safety or significance? Ultimately you are going to be opposed. Will it be by the world or by God? Ultimately, you are going to endure something. Are you going to merely endure the truth or the opposition that comes from embracing it? Are you going to live a life of safety or significance? Walking through life wisely is choosing well what you will endure and whom you will please, knowing that God will win and God is faithful.