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2 Timothy 2:1, You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
You may wonder, “Why just this one verse for a whole sermon?” Because if there is anything we need, it is this inward strength to live our Christian lives that comes from our union with Christ. We must remember each day that our strength is in Christ, not in ourselves. We must live in daily dependence on Him, and it is in Him we find this empowering grace. This grace is our soul-fuel. You’re going nowhere with an empty tank; you can’t live the Christian life without this empowering grace that flows into your heart from the giver of grace, Christ Jesus, our Lord.
“You therefore” means Paul is looking back to chapter one and assuring Timothy, his loved child in the faith, that God will provide all the empowering grace he’ll need to guard the truth, to stand firm, to fight the good fight of faith, and to stand unashamed of the gospel and of Paul. Paul knew Timothy couldn’t fulfill God’s will in his own strength, and neither can we. You and I both need God’s empowering grace to stand bold for Christ in this world. We need empowering grace to face the trials and hardships as Paul did. We too need empowering grace to suffer persecution like those bold martyrs we read about. We need empowering grace to deal with our own sins and to put them to death. You cannot live the Christian life in your own strength. You need empowering grace to be the husband or wife God wants you to be, the parent God wants you to be, the teacher God wants you to be, the student, the person God wants you to be.
SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE
Your Christian life is dependent on God’s grace from beginning to end. Second Timothy 1:9 says God saved us by His own purpose and grace given to us in eternity past. First Peter 1:13 says we’re looking for the grace to be brought to us at the coming of Christ. Plus, Ephesians 2:8 says we’re saved by grace alone, not by our works or merit. And this empowering grace is the daily fuel for your soul to joyfully, willingly, and eagerly to live for Christ.
Paul gloried in Christ’s sufficient grace in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10, And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Here’s one of those great paradoxes of the Christian life: when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul boasts in his weakness that Christ’s power may rest on him. Christ’s power rests on the weak, the unknown, the shut-in, the teacher or student, pastor or missionary, the mother caring for her littles, the home schoolteacher, and the father providing for his family. Christ’s grace is sufficient for the blind Fanny Crosbys, the quadriplegic Joni Earecksons, the Justin Peters who serve the Lord in their wheelchairs. “That the power of Christ may dwell or rest in us.” The word “rests” means Christ dwells with His people in their weakness. He is the source of their strength. Paul rejoices, “When I am weak, then I am strong!” That is the sufficiency of grace for your life.
It is the sufficiency of this grace that strengthened the Reformers, the Luthers, the Zwinglis, the Calvins and thousands of Waldensians and Huguenots to stand boldly in the face of intense opposition and bloody persecution. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace did not prove vain…not I but the grace of God with me.” When you need help in your Christians life, Christ invites you to come to the throne of grace that you might receive mercy and find grace to help at just the right time (Hebrews 4:16).
EMPOWERING GRACE
In chapter one Paul told Timothy to not be ashamed of the gospel or of Paul, to stand boldly for God’s truth, and to guard the truth. He gave a couple examples of traitors and one example of a faithful friend, Onesiphorus, who stood with him in his distress. Now like a loving and deeply concerned father, Paul urges Timothy as his child. It is very personal and caring, “You, therefore, my child.” Paul is going to lay more responsibilities on Timothy, and he wants Timothy to be fully aware that God’s grace is more than sufficient to empower him to serve Christ. He’s going to face false teachers and persecution, as well as teaching others. The verb “be strengthened” is a present passive imperative. Timothy, you will always need to be empowered by God’s grace in Christ, but it’s passive – you can’t empower yourself. You need to realize you don’t have what it takes to fulfill God’s plan for you. It is God’s grace that empowers you.
The Christian life isn’t just difficult; it’s impossible in our own strength. Only Christ, through His grace empowering you, can provide what you need to live the Christian life. Christ said in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing!” As R. C. Sproul would say – that’s not even a little something. Nothing means not one thing. When you feel the weakest, often that is when Christ’s power will flow through you the most. Christ wants to be glorified through your life; He does it and gets all the credit. Spurgeon tells about preaching two sermons. The first one was a complete dud humanly speaking, so he determined to do better the next time. But when he heard the effect of both sermons, he realized it was the dud that God used most in the lives of the hearers. I assure you, that is encouraging for a preacher or teacher. There have been plenty of duds! Thank God He overrules our weakness with His strength.
EXPERIENCING GOD’S EMPOWERING GRACE
So how do we apply this verse? How can we experience this inner strengthening, this empowering grace?
First, you must walk in fellowship with the PERSON who is the source of this strength. Ever feel weak, incapable, useless, at the end of your rope, at your wits end? That was King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20:12. The enemy armies were approaching. Jehoshaphat prayed, “O Lord, are You not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Your hand so that no one can stand against You.” Then he cries out, “We are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on you!” Verse 13 says Israel stood there helpless with their wives, infants, and children. Then a Levite, in the power of the Spirit, stood up and announced, “Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.’” They all fell down worshipping the Lord, and the next day they went out to battle singing and praising the Lord. When they got to a lookout to see the enemy, all they saw were corpses. God had confused them, and they destroyed one another. “We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on You!” That’s an Old Testament example of God’s people looking to the source of their strength.
“Our eyes are on you.” Hebrews 12:2 says, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” We too often look at ourselves. Robert Murray M’Cheyne said, “For every look at yourself take ten looks at Jesus.” Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me and you will find rest for your soul.” The Christian life is not just a theory or philosophy or a technique for better living. It is not three steps to a better you, nor twelve rules to get rid of the chaos in your life. Two of Jordan Peterson’s twelve rules are stand up straight and always pet a cat when you meet one in the street. These are cute and perhaps helpful tips for living, but where’s Christ? Peterson’s twelve rules are more like stoic moralism. The Christian life is much more. The Christian life is the majestic, holy God actively working in us by His grace through His Son. He gives us grace to empower us. Paul magnifies this power in Ephesians 3.
Ephesians 3:20-21, Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
This is why Timothy as a believer and you as a believer will have all the inner power needed to fulfill all God has for us to do. This is why you as a believer can handle and manage the trials and disappointments and difficulties that come your way. Why? You have exceedingly great power in the grace that is yours in Christ Jesus. If you have a pound of trials, Christ has one hundred pounds of empowering grace for you. My electric bike goes all of 20 MPH, which seems really slow. Christ’s empowering grace is like a 0-60 in 1.66 seconds special Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. Christ’s power in you is exceedingly abundant beyond all that you can ask or think. This is why you can return good for evil, do good to those who mistreat you, love your neighbor and even your enemy. You have the empowering grace of Christ throbbing in your soul.
And this exceedingly great power is what Timothy and you and I need to stand for God’s truth, God’s gospel, God’s standards in this “organized chaos” as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it. And this is why as corrupt and crazy as our culture has become, we aren’t living with our mouths turned down in resignation or in gloom and doom. We have a different focus. We want people to hear and receive the gospel. We aren’t ashamed of what the Bible calls sin. June is so-called “Pride Month.” It could be national shame month. The gender-bender issues are not only evil but sad as the secular, humanistic culture is working overtime to make the moral chaos seem normal. Christ is the source of our strength.
Second you have God’s daily PROMISE of grace that brings Christ’s power. This grace is all God provides for you in and through His Son. Every day Jesus pours grace into your life.
John 1:16, For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
Grace upon grace, like one wave after another, unending and unlimited grace from the source of grace, Jesus Christ. It’s always there for you, like the hot water for your shower. You don’t have to go fetch water and heat it; it’s at your fingertips. I know, sometimes the heater quits. But God’s sufficient grace never quits. God’s provision of grace is like blood surging through your body with each beat of your heart, picking up the oxygen and nutrients and carrying them to your cells, beat by beat. This is how God empowers us. His grace surges through our lives for every need. His empowering grace strengthens us to obey and be bold for Christ.
This empowering grace guards us from pride and self-righteousness. Grace keeps us humble. James 4:6 says God gives grace to the humble. We learn from those disciples who seemed to be endlessly arguing about who was the greatest. We won’t be comparing ourselves with anyone or trying to compete with anyone. We won’t feel jealousy if someone else seems to be more successful. Grace keeps us encouraged. Even in our darkest hours, there is no shortage of grace.
Annie Johnson Flint, born in Vineland, New Jersey, lived from 1866 to 1932. Her parents died while she was very young. Her foster parents also died in her youth. As she grew older, she developed debilitating arthritis that consigned her to a wheelchair. But Annie had a flair for poetry and wrote quite a few poems. She even had some published to earn money. One of her most memorable ones expresses the power and sufficiency of Christ’s grace:
He gives more grace when the burdens grow greater.
He sends more strength when the labors increase,
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure.
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth and giveth again.
That captures the essence of our verse – unlimited power from unlimited grace in our infinitely gracious Savior, Jesus Christ.
Third, the POWER of this grace. It is literally, “be empowered” – infused with power. Paul used the same word in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me, who infuses me with His power.” It’s like a spiritual power port permanently fixed to your soul. Paul will use the same word in 2 Timothy 4:17, “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened (empowered) me.” Paul had this grace-port in his soul and Christ poured in the power-producing grace he needed to face all the trials he experienced.
2 Corinthians 4:7-10, But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
Let’s finish with that great power-passage in Isaiah 40:28-31.
Isaiah 40:28-31, Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. 29 He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power. 30 Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, 31 Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.
Here is how you access God’s strength for your weakness. You admit your absolute need of God’s grace in your life. Then notice in verse 31, “They who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength.” The word “wait” is not passive. The Hebrew word for wait, qavah, has the idea of entwining, like braiding a rope. Waiting is like wrapping your weakness within God’s power and finding your strength renewed or exchanged, your weakness for His strength. “Lord, I bring you my nothing. I need your everything,” and you go forward in confidence, empowered by God’s grace.
SO WHAT?
“Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Timothy needed this. I need it. And if you are a true believer, you need it. Draw near to Christ. He invites you who are weary and burdened down with cares to take His yoke and learn from Him. He will give you the sufficiency of His empowering grace, to the glory of Christ.
Do you know Christ? Are you certain you are on your way to heaven? Do you realize how much you need Him? That you can do nothing whatsoever to earn His love or grace? He went to the Roman cross to pay the debt of sin, to appease the wrath of God for all who confess their sin, repent of going their own way, and put their trust in Him as Lord and Savior. Are you ready to meet your God?