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2 Timothy 2:3-4 Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
We’ve just come through another Memorial Day to remember those soldiers who have fallen in their service for our country. And Thursday was the 80th anniversary of “D-Day.” I discovered this week the “D” stands for “day.” So, it’s Day-Day. But D-Day sounds so much better. I also discovered this week that Brigadier General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. (son of President Teddy Roosevelt) requested three times to lead the assault on Utah Beach in the Normandy invasion. He was 56 years old (he also served in WW1). He was one of the first soldiers off the landing craft. He realized the wind had blown them about a mile off course, so, “walking with the aid of a cane and carrying a pistol,” he made the needed correction. His famous words were, “We’ll start the war from right here!”
War brings out the worse and best in men. It’s thrilling to read about the “Father” of our country as he led forces against the French and Indians before our own war of Independence. George Washington wrote his brother John: “By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt…” In another letter to his brother, he wrote: “The right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and received all the enemy’s fire … I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”
War stories teach us lessons on loyalty and courage. Paul often presents the Christian life in military terms. Here in 2 Timothy 2:3-4 he is teaching us how to serve Christ as a good soldier. From these verses we’ll look at five marks of a courageous, loyal Christian soldier.
A GOOD SOLDIER – as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (vs. 3b).
I’ve never served as a soldier…until Christ enlisted me into His forces back in 1971. I’m here to inform you that if you are a genuine believer in Christ, you too are enlisted as a soldier, a Christian soldier. And it is God’s will that every one of us be good or excellent soldiers. Paul uses the word “kalos” when he exhorts Timothy to be a “good” soldier. Good has the idea of excellent or noble. We want to serve Jesus Christ, our Commander, with honor and bravery.
Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Paul does not exhort Timothy to be a common, or ordinary soldier, but to be a ‘good soldier of Jesus Christ;’ for all soldiers, and all true soldiers, may not be good soldiers. There are men who are but just soldiers and nothing more; they only need sufficient temptation and they readily become cowardly, idle, useless and worthless; but he is the good soldier who is bravest of the brave, courageous at all times, who is zealous, does his duty with heart and earnestness.”
A CHOSEN SOLDIER – the one who enlisted him as a soldier (vs. 4b).
This is not a volunteer army. You didn’t even choose to enlist. Christ chose you, saved you by faith alone, and immediately enlisted you into His army.
John 15:16, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
You belong to the ranks of a multitude of earth’s most honorable, valiant soldiers. We serve in Christ’s army shoulder to shoulder with the saints of the ages and from around the world. And we are called to the greatest warfare ever. Paul calls it the good fight of faith.
1 Timothy 6:12, Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
In Ephesians 6:10-13 Paul exhorts us to tap into our Commander’s power and put on the armor we need to successfully engage in this war.
Ephesians 6:10-18, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
I’m afraid Christians today think Christ promises His people a cushiony life of ease. J. C. Ryle in his sermon “The Fight” wrote, “Conversion is not putting a person in a soft armchair and taking them easily to heaven. It’s the beginning of a mighty conflict.” Our hymn writers knew we were called to battle. Isaac Watts asks:
Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb
and shall I fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name?
Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease,
while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?
Our warfare is completely different than earthly war. We are not fighting other nations or other people. Jesus said, “If my kingdom was of this world, then would my servants fight” (John 18:36). We are fighting a spiritual war using spiritual weapons to fight spiritual enemies. Paul described our warfare in 2 Corinthians 10.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,
The fortresses and speculations which Paul is talking about are in simple terms anything in our world and culture that attacks God, His works, and His Word! Our weapons are not physical weapons, but the weapons of truth to oppose false teaching, false ideologies, false sciences, the godless secularism of our times. Today God’s absolute truth and moral standards are all being censored, dissolved out of the mainstream. We are fighting attacks on God, the trinity, creation vs. evolution, two and only two genders, heterosexual marriage, man’s total depravity in sin, and the universal flood. All of these are under severe attack. Secularism means there is no God; man is his own god and there is no heaven above or hell below. Secularism is behind the climate change movement which presents man as god who can save the planet. They refuse the fact that God designed and created our universe. Scientists are the priests of the religion of secularism. These are the enemies of God’s truth. Secularism is a belief against which we are called to fight the good fight.
Fortresses, speculations, and lofty things raised up against the glory of God are the enemies and our weapons for the battle are divinely powerful to pull them down as we speak God’s truth into our own hearts and into the world system. We must remember, though, that our war isn’t against people. People are deceived by this world, and our mission is to rescue as many as God will save through our proclamation of the gospel.
A DEVOTED SOLDIER – Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (v. 3a).
Paul already called Timothy to face this harsh reality. Second Timothy 1:8, “Join with me is suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.” Paul wanted Timothy to be under no delusion that the Christian life is a life of ease. And God doesn’t want you or me to be surprised that God hasn’t promised His soldiers an easy life in this world. True Christianity doesn’t walk in silver slippers, as the Puritans put it. We live in an evil world that has never come to terms with Christ.
John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”
We have had it pretty easy in our nation, and I’m thankful. But as the culture turns increasingly secular, increasingly antagonistic toward Christianity, increasingly godless in disposing of unwanted elements like unborn babies and normalizing sexual perversion and immorality, we need to be prepared to suffer. We don’t know the future, but as Paul assures us, we do know that there are hardships for believers. Paul strengthened the disciples in Acts 14:22 by encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” The first century believers had to endure hardships, suffering, and persecution. Just skim through Acts. Peter and John are thrown into prison, Stephen is stoned, James gets the sword in Acts 12, and they throw Peter into prison again. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city in Acts 14, beat him to a pulp in Philippi, and threw him and Silas into jail. Paul was falsely accused in Jerusalem. There was a plot to kill him, he was taken to Rome as a prisoner, released, and now imprisoned again under Nero. This isn’t a picnic or party or your best life now. No health, wealth, and prosperity message here.
When you trace the church through the centuries, it’s a story of going through “bloody seas.” First you have the waves of persecution by the Roman Empire. Then the Roman Catholic Church tortured and killed who knows how many up through the Reformation. The 16th century witnessed untold horrors for true believers who were considered heretics. Sadly, even some Reformers brought cruel hardship on the Anabaptists simply for believing the Bible taught believers baptism rather than infant baptism, and that the Lord’s Table was symbolic rather than a mass or sacrifice of Christ all over again. God’s precious people have been persecuted throughout the world, including in our own day.
Paul encourages Timothy and us, “Endure hardship with me.” Paul knew it’s easier to face and endure hardships when others are enduring them with you. That’s why he says, “Endure hardship with me.” In 1555 when Bloody Mary sent those godly Puritans Latimer and Ridley to their fiery deaths, their biographer says, “The two men warmly embraced when they met at the stake. Ridley smiled and said, ‘Be of good heart, brother, for God will either ease the pain of the flames or else strengthen us to endure it.’” When they torched the straw and wood, Latimer said, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day, by God’s grace, light such a candle in England, as I trust, will never be put out.” (Trial and Triumph, pp. 142-143).
So, Paul calls Timothy to prepare himself to suffer hardship along with him. According to Foxes Book of Martyrs, while Timothy was an elder of the church in Ephesus in AD 97, the pagans were marching down the street to celebrate one of their godless festivals. Timothy confronted them and reproved them for their idolatry. Enraged by his charges, the pagans beat him with clubs so hard he died two days later.
Endure hardness. If you determine to live godly in Christ Jesus, there’ll be plenty of people who think you’ve gone off the deep end, including family and friends. Even professing Christians will question your zeal for Christ. If you live according to biblical standards, you will fly directly against the godlessness of our age.
Count your blessings, friends, but have no delusions about what it really means to fight the good fight of faith in this fallen world. Be ready to suffer anything for your Commander, Jesus Christ. Be willing to face the foe fearlessly. Whatever Christ wants you to do and whenever He wants you to do it, don’t back down. Don’t give in, hold the line, don’t quit. God put us here as His soldiers on a search and rescue operation. We are living in a world of lost and dying people. Look at the multitudes of spectators at sports events and think, “How many of those faces, men, women, children, will die without Christ and go off into an eternity of torment.” Consider the faces you see at the grocery store, your bank, or around your family table and imagine them facing the torment of hell. Call out to God for His mercy on them and given opportunity, tell them the message of God’s truth in the Bible. The war we are in is a war against evil, against godlessness, but it’s a war to rescue lost people from the jaws of eternal punishment.
AN UNDISTRACTED SOLDIER – No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life (v. 4a).
The key word here is “entangles.” The Greek word is empleko, to entwine. It was used by the soldiers entwining that crown of thorns. Or it’s like a skein of yarn all tangled up. A good soldier stays free of stuff that gets him all tangled up as if ropes are wrapped around his legs so he can’t even march, let alone maneuver in battle. Hebrews 12:1 uses a different word meaning the same thing: “Let us lay aside every encumbrance or weight and the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
What entanglements does Christ’s soldier avoid? Paul calls them the “affairs of everyday life.” In Luke 8:14 Jesus described these distractions as worries, riches, and the pleasures of this life that choke out the word. These are all these earthly things that braid themselves around your legs or around your neck and begin to choke your spiritual walk.
How easy for this to happen in America. Pastor Steve Cole tells this story, I believe it is true, about a professing Christian man who told his Christian financial advisor that he was beginning what promised to be a very profitable business. However, everyone needed to know that for a short time, it was going to take a lot of extra work and time, but once it was up and going, he’d have a lot of extra time to serve at the church and for his own family. You probably know where this story is going. First, he had to quit serving at the church on Wednesdays and Saturdays to work on his business, so he missed church meetings. Then the business needed even more of his time, so he had to miss prayer meetings, quit teaching Sunday School with no time to prepare, and then a crisis in the business meant missing even Sunday morning worship. This went on for a good number of weeks. Finally, the business went sour, and he faced bankruptcy. He went to the Christian counselor to tell his story. Here was his question: “Why would God put me into this business just to see it fail?” This reminds me of Proverbs 19:3, “The foolishness of man ruins his way, and his heart rages against the LORD.”
Here’s the obvious lesson – anything that comes before seeking first God’s kingdom in your life is an entangling thing. This could even include a girlfriend or boyfriend. Any close relationship should encourage living full throttle for Christ. Paul’s not talking about normal and necessary time serving your family and making a living to provide for them. He’s talking about anything that distracts you from serving the Lord as a good soldier of Christ. Jerry Wragg in his book Courageous Churchmen notes that “endurance comes from minimizing excess baggage and maximizing efforts to achieve God’s battle objectives.”
Paul described the undistracted life perfectly in Acts 20.
Acts 20:24, But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
A SINGLE-MINDED SOLDIER – So that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier (vs. 4b).
In verse three God calls us to serve as a good or excellent soldier of Jesus Christ. What is the driving motive of a good soldier? To please his commander. Is that your motive? Can you say regarding your Christian life, “Above all, I want to please Christ. I want to be a good soldier for Him. I’ll endure hardness in the battle to bring Him glory.” A soldier doesn’t serve to please the enemy, the civilians, or even his fellow soldiers, and especially himself. You stay strong and fight to please Christ. That’s what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:9.
2 Corinthians 5:9, Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of your utmost loyalty and endurance in the heat of battle. No quitting. No turning back. No giving up. When Christ is your delight, your love, and the joy of your heart, you will focus on what pleases Him and won’t allow this worldly stuff to get tangled around your heart and life and trip you up! He’s worth 10 million times more than all this stuff that’s going to be burned up. It’s already wearing out.
When Brigadier General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. repositioned his forces on Utah Beach 80 years ago, he declared, “We’ll start the war from right here!” He was given a medal of honor for his bravery. Our Commander is telling us here and now, “Fight the good fight of faith. Serve as a good soldier, a chosen soldier, an undistracted soldier, a devoted soldier, a single-minded soldier.” The highest honor won’t be a Medal of Honor but to hear from our Commander, “Well done, you good and faithful servant.”
Our Commander Jesus Christ is coming back on that white horse, with the sword of the Word coming from His mouth, and on His thigh is written, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” You and I will be riding right behind Him on those white horses, coming down for that final mop-up operation battle just before He sets up His millennial kingdom (Revelation 19-20). But now, we have this privilege to fight as His good soldiers today and every day. Wake up each morning this week with the thought, “I want to please my heavenly Commander today.”