2 Timothy 2:14-19
June 22, 2025 sermon by Landry Franks
-
Thank you, Abby, for reading this morning, and, Jay and Brett and Johnny and Caleb for prayers and leading us in different ways this morning. So encouraged, like Jay mentioned by our singing together this morning. I don't know if it's the room or your loud voices, but, did my heart well to hear us sing God's truth through song this morning. Parents often have a much needed life advice that they, want to impart on their children. Parents often have much needed life advice that they want to impart on their children, and maybe you're a kid in the room.
Your parents have much needed life advice that they want to impart to you, so maybe listen occasionally. They wanna share encouragements and life direction. This week made me think about my dad who would sit me and my brothers down and talk about much, the important things in life, like how to have a job interview or, change changing the oil in a car, which I cannot do. Do not tell my father that. How to balance a checkbook or care for your finances or, which cereal bowl was the best to get the most Captain Crunch in it.
It would give me and my brothers direction, and there would be a time, both in the the silly and the and the serious moments in which my brothers and I would have to put into practice the things that we heard from my dad. We would have to implement them into our lives. Thinking about these conversations with my father, one moment in particular stood out to me this week, I was probably eight or nine years old, and my dad said, there will be a day where someone says to you that things in the Bible are not true, you need to trust God and you need to stand for what is true. And I can remember being young and thinking, well if that one happened to me, all my friends go to church, or at least they say they do. No one would say that to me, but sure enough, and I'm sure many of you have a similar example in your own life. Few years later in high school, a friend looked at me and scoffed at the scriptures and pushed back on the reliability of the Bible. And I was then drawn back to my father's words, to trust God and to stand for what is true. And if I'm just honest with you this morning, I was tempted I was tempted to just be agreeable with my friend. So there wouldn't be any tension or awkwardness between us. He's a close friend.
It's obvious that he disagreed with me. He was presented with the temptation to even flee to just kind of walk away from the conversation or to stand and say the truth like my father instructed me to do, to implement it. It was a moment where I needed to implement my father's words, to put them to use, to put them into practice. So in my most feeble 15 year old attempt, I tried to advocate for the Bible to my friend, and it was it was a bit of a train wreck, I but I tried my best and in God's grace I think He He used me in those moments, but my dad wasn't there to help me. I had to implement what I had been told to do, but I did my best to share the reliability of the Bible with my friend.
And similarly, in our passage this morning, Paul has been giving reminders to Timothy throughout this letter. In fact, if you just flip through your Bible in second Timothy, you'll see the word remember or remind several times. We've had, Paul reminding Timothy of his faith, that he has a spirit of power and love and self control and not of fear. Reminders to share in sufferings like Paul is suffering.
Reminders of the gospel. To not be ashamed of Paul's chains. A reminder to be to find his strength in Christ and to entrust the gospel to faithful men in chapter two, and we even last week looked at a poem where Timothy is reminded of God's character and his faithfulness to his people. But now in our text this morning, we come to the practical and the tangible, example of how Timothy is supposed to implement what he has been reminded of, what he has been hearing from Paul, and now, he is to put it into practice. He needs to take these encouragements and these reminders and the truth of the gospel and treat real life examples, of what's going on in his congregation.
It's where the rubber meets the road for Timothy. Timothy's charge from Paul is a simple one, but it's a challenging one. It's to implement what he's heard. He is to handle the word of truth so that God's people might walk in truth, to handle the word of truth so that God's people might walk in truth. And this is also our main point this morning that we need to handle the word of truth so that we might walk in the word of truth. We need to rightly understand God's word so that we can implement it in how we live. And we're gonna see this broken down into three sections today. First in verses 14 to 15, we'll see instructions for words. In verses 14 to 15, instructions for words. And then in verses 16 to 18, we'll see warn warnings for words. Warnings for words.
And finally, in verse 19, we'll see confidence in God's word, confidence in God's word. Let's look back at verses 14 and 15 one more time. It 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. 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.
Instructions for words. You you'll notice in verse 14, it says, remind them of these things. And a few weeks ago, Brett, talked about, the beginning of, second Timothy chapter two in which Paul called Timothy to entrust the gospel to faithful men. And here in verse 14, we return back to those faithful men, and it's a tangible example of how Timothy is supposed to entrust the gospel to these faithful men. And verses 14 and 15 have a direct application for these faithful men and for Timothy, and these faithful men would have been potential elders or are those who would, who would come up after Timothy to lead the church. So the direct application is to them, but it has a helpful application to the church and to us this morning as well.
These faithful men are supposed to model these things that they're to remember that they're being charged with, but the church is to follow in the footsteps of Timothy and these faithful men who are modeling it. So, yes, it is to remind these shepherds of the flock, but also to remind the flock, the congregation, that it is, the shepherd's flock to protect. So it has an implication for us today, this morning as well. And you might notice in verse 14, he says remind them and charge them to calls there.
The reminder points the readers and, the shepherds back to the text just before where Paul encouraged these men with or encouraged Timothy with the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul might be bound but the word of God is not bound but it's saved. So remind them of that good news that God's word is not bound. So Timothy is supposed to point them back to the gospel, but he also says charge them. Charge them. In fact, one translation might be more accurate. It's warn them. There's a tone shift from behind them of the gospel, but charge them, warn them. And what is he to warn them of? Not to quarrel about words that ruins its hearers, not to quarrel about words that ruins its hearers. And at first glance, this quarreling might just seem like a misunderstanding or a minor conflict.
I feel like as a parent when I use the word quarreling, it's often about my kids behavior while we're driving somewhere. But it's much more. This implies fighting about words or fighting with words or fighting in particular with doctrine and shifting and changing doctrine and making fights about that that is impacting the church. In fact, the word ruins in this passage is the same word that we use for catastrophe. It is a catastrophe for the men, these faithful men, and for Timothy to fight about doctrinal words in a way that is contrary to scripture.
In fact, this is not the first time that Paul has instructed Timothy on these kind of word fighting. If you just flip back to first Timothy chapter six starting in verse two, he says this, teach the teach and urge these things. There's a similar warning or charge. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound word of the Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up and conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy, and here it is, and for quarrels about words.
These people are teaching false doctrine that's impacting the church. It produces envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among the people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. So what we can see there is that the people in Timothy's congregation who are fighting about words are fighting about wrong doctrine, and they're doing it in a self interested way. These faithful men are to uphold the right teaching of God's word. Some people are misunderstanding it and pushing others to do the same as we'll see later on in this passage.
Paul says that these things lead to envy, dissension, slander, evil, suspicions, constant friction. These people miss the truth, and because of them, others miss the truth as well. And the charge is to warn that these faithful men are not to quarrel about words like these. Don't join in Timothy to what is happening. Don't talk about these words. Instead, what is Timothy to do? He's to rightly handle the word of God, to rightly handle the Word of Truth.
Verse 15, Paul shifts from speaking about this faith plan, and he speaks really directly to Timothy. And I think it's, helpful for us to remember the fondness that Paul has for Timothy. And I think we ought to read this section, verse 15, with that same fatherly kindness from Paul to Timothy, but we should also sense the urgency and importance of it as well, he says, do your best.
Verse 15 do your best, Timothy. Present yourself as one approved. And there's a season in life where I, I had the the privilege to coach high school football, doing youth ministry in Council Road and, coached, high school football. And, you know, when we were winning, a game or losing a game by a lot, which might have been more frequent, which shows you how good of a coach I was, we would try to get some of the players who hadn't played that much in the game, and so, you know, you're subbing in players, and there's a reason why some of these players have not played during the season. Some of that was maybe they, you know, there's just the skills weren't there.
But often, it was the players who didn't listen to coaching or didn't know the playbook. You really couldn't trust them to play in the game. But, you know, in these settings, their mom and dads are there, so you're trying to get them some reps. So you put them in at the end of the game, and without fail, these players would go get lined up. The play clock is running down, and then they would look over to the sidelines at me and say, across the field, coach, what do I do on this play?
It's too late for me to give them any coaching. I can't yell out what they're supposed to do or what coverage we're in or what even try to explain coverage to them, right? I would just say, do your best. Do your best buddy, find the ball and run after it. There's no there's no more time to coach this person. No more time. And is that what Paul is saying here? Is he just saying, hey, Timothy, do your best, brother. No.
No, he's doing quite the opposite. In fact, some translations say, make every effort. Make every effort. Do your best, Timothy. Make every effort to live as one approved. There's real intentionality and work to be done in the life of Timothy. And what is he to make every effort to do? To be to be one approved. But friends, let's slow down. I want us to notice. Let's read it again. It says, Do yourself. Do your best to present yourself to God. As one, approved to God. He is to be approved by God.
He is not to be approved by the people in his congregation that he's pastoring or approved by his community. It's certainly not approved by the people that are fighting against the gospel. He is to be a worker approved first and foremost by God. He is to make every effort that his work is not for the acclaim of man. It's not for a pat on the back. It's not so that life would be easy. It is for God's glory and God's glory alone.
So church members, one way that you might pray for Brett and I regularly is that when we pastor, as we're pastoring, that we would read this verse and take it with weight and with seriousness, that we might be faithful men to present ourselves to God and not to man. That we wouldn't lead Providence out of fear of man, but out of fear of the Lord. Pray that we might do this with great effort, not just doing our best like those players on the football field. No. No. No. To do our best, to be careful, and to be mindful of being approved by God.
But this is this is also something that we all might be mindful of this morning. And it's our temptation to care more about what people think about us than what God thinks about us. It's easy for us to think about what people might be saying or what we think they might be saying about us instead of what God says about us. We are to be approved. We're to make every effort to be approved by God, and our life reflects His thoughts and His words and not man's thoughts and man's words. So how is Timothy then to be approved?
To push back on these fighting words, this quarreling, he is to rightly handle the word. He is to treat the wounds and the infection in his congregation with the undiluted Word of God. And this will be a pressure cooker of where Timothy's affections lie. His task is to bring the Word of God to the people of God even if the message they hear is not one that they want to hear. Timothy certainly would have been tempted to shift or to hedge or to rightly handle some of the word, but he is to bring all of it undiluted to God's people for their good.
This in and of itself will cause pushback. Even consider this morning the message of the gospel. It is a message that causes pushback to the unbeliever. Says you are a sinner and you need to repent from your sins and trust in someone else for salvation. What you are doing will lead you to hell.
What modern person or any person would receive this with joy apart from God's spirit? Yet this is the message we are to bring to a lost world that we are dead in our sins, but God has made us alive in Him. We need to trust Him and not ourselves. He has revealed this truth to us through His Word, so rightly handle it, Timothy.
Timothy must preach it. He must teach it. He must instruct it. He must give the full truth from God's word no matter the pushback he receives and is receiving. It's one reason we here at Providence walk through books of the bible so that our hearts and affections might submit to the scriptures and not to our own thoughts and opinions.
The ones the scriptures we like and also the scriptures we don't like. The ones that are easy to read and the ones sometimes that might make us wiggle in our seats. We read the whole scripture. We submit to the whole scripture, and Paul instructs these faithful men. And Timothy says, number one, don't fight about words. Instruction one. Instruction two, present yourselves to God. Instruction three, rightly handle the word with boldness. We too need to receive this instruction. We may not be in word fights like Timothy and these faithful young men are to to be are are in, but our words to each other and about each other have meaning.
The call from these verses is for us to be a people who use our words to bless each other, to use God's Word. So when we need to speak to each other, we share God's Word with each other. When we pray, we we pray the words of scripture with each other. When we, when we call out one another, we submit to God's Word together. We use God's Word to encourage, to pick up. We use our words for kindness and for love. We do not use our words to fight. We run to God's Word and we find joy and strength in it together. We're also instructed to be a worker approved by God and not by man. And we ought to always have an internal dialogue in our head about the things we're doing.
If we're seeking someone else's approval or if we're seeking God's approval. So that when people, our culture might want us to avoid the truth and we might be tempted to follow in man's footsteps, we can know what is true. And we find our purpose and value not in this world, but we find our purpose and value in God and His Word. Instruction three, we need to rightly handle the Word. Pastors, certainly, yes.
Brett and I need to share and show how to rightly handle God's Word, but God's people too need to rightly handle God's Word. That's why we have the equipping hour every single Sunday morning. It's why we have Sunday school classes. It's why we have community groups. We want the word to be used well, to return to it, to rightly handle it.
It's why we preach it in the service so that we can rightly understand God's Word and to use it well. Need to rightly handle the word, All of the Word, not just some of the Word. St. Augustine said, If you believe what you like in the Gospels and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel that you believe, it is yourself. Friends, we wanna believe all of God's Word. All of it. Read it in the mornings. Take time in the morning or at night. Don't neglect it. Memorize it. Study it. Submit to it. Trust the Word. It is the antidote to the lies that we might believe about ourselves or about others.
Instructions for words. We have instructions for words, but we also have warnings for those words. Warnings for those words. Let's read verses 16 to 18 again, it says, but avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hermione Oh, gosh. Someone say it for me. I'm stuck. Hymenaeus. That's where we're gonna go with. Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the Truth saying the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.
Maybe you played this game, as a kid with telephone in grade school. There were, it's a simple game where you sit in a circle and someone would, start with a phrase, and you go around the circle. And there's always one jokester in every class who would do the typical thing where they would change the message entirely so that when it got back around to the teacher or whoever started it, it would just be completely different. There'd be a distortion in what was said.
Maybe they changed a word or two and, and often it would ruin the game for all people. If you're a rule follower like me, you know, you wanted to say the exact right thing exactly it's like guys names in, second Timothy. But this this game of telephone you know one small change can twist everyone's understanding of what was actually said. In verses 16 and 18, we have a contrast between Timothy and these faithful men who are to live godly lives and these two unfaithful men who are changing the message of the gospel. Timothy is to be upright in character, to be wise with his words, but here we have two men who are playing their own game of telephone and they're changing the truth of God's Word to help themselves.
They're encouraging others to do the same. Paul uses the descriptor of gangrene for their speech. Gangrene. And I won't go into details about gangrene, and I certainly would not encourage you to Google it. It's disgusting. But that's why Paul uses it. It's this infection that is that is if it's not treated, it starts in your fingers or in your toes, then it'll swallow up your whole arm or leg. It's easily treated. Antibiotics. It's it's easily treated, but if it is left unchecked, it starts small. And if it's ignored, it can cause the loss of the limb or it can kill the whole body.
So here, these men have swerved from the truth. They are ignoring the rightly handled Word of the Lord and they are handling the way that they want to handle it. They're saying the resurrection has already happened, meaning that all those who have died have now been raised. That the end time realities are here, that you get to participate that in that now. Really, they're saying, you can you can live however you want to live. Joy, happiness, prosperity, security, they're yours right now. Live however you wish. You get to reign right now. You're a king. The Gospel is distorted by these men's words. Saying that, the gospel should be about God's glory, but instead they're making it about man's pleasure. Put yourself in Timothy's shoes who is to preach to a congregation who has these two men saying, live however you want. Live however you want. You wanna live that way? Great. Do it. You should be prospering. You should be happy. You should be filled with joy. Yet, Timothy is not happy. He's not being filled with joy. He is sad. His mentor is in prison. These men are mocking Paul, mocking Timothy.
Paul is in prison. There's pushback on Timothy that, these men would have been giving, to him. They would have claimed that Paul had missed the whole point of the gospel, and he suffers for no reason. This is what Timothy is faced with. And Paul says, avoid this irreverent babble, run from this, get your people to run from it.
Why? Because like gangrene does to the body, this false gospel will do the same to the body of Christ. And it might have started with some harmless question about the scriptures as often false gospels do. And then some push backs to certain aspects of the bible or the gospel. Then all of the sudden, there is a denial of what is true from God's word because it is infected in the it has infected an area in the body because it was not dealt with.
Says these things that they're talking about, these men, lead to ungodliness. This is not a harmless cough in the body of Christ that these two men are pushing. It is a disease that needs to be treated with antibiotics, with medicine, with the truth from God's word. The undiluted truth needs to be treated on this false gospel. Paul is saying, don't settle for these lies. Instead, Timothy rightly handled the Word with, rightly handled the Word so that these lies, this sickness might be exposed. It might be treated. If needed, it would be cut off from the body of Christ.
Friends, we need to be people like Timothy and like Paul who uphold the truth of God's word for each other. These lies being spread around that are upsetting some of the faith would not impact the church at Providence. That we would hold fast to God's Word, that we'd have confidence in the truth of God's Word. Because there is hope in God's Word. And that we might not have irreverent babble, or be dealing with a current prosperity gospel or threats to the gospel in those ways, but we all have temptations to ungodliness, to swerve from the truth.
Maybe it's maybe it's just a little gossip here and there about a friend. They won't know. They're not they're not in the room. Maybe you even put a spiritual twist on it and say, just just bless them. Maybe our lives are segmented in how we live. We live one way at work. We speak one way when our family is not around or when we're not at church, we treat people a different way. But when we're around our church family or Christian friends, we tow the line. We believe the gospel when it is convenient for us to get something for us. But when God's word might ask us to live differently, it feels too stretching, it's too hard. Just want to ignore it.
Friends, don't believe a lie. Believe the gospel. Don't run to ungodliness because it's easy, because it looks good. Run to Jesus who actually is good. So we have hope in this gospel and this word that Christ lived and died for our sins and he rose again and he paid a high price for our ungodliness so that we might be adopted as sons and daughters through his righteousness.
One day we'll be glorified with him forever, and listen friends, having real joy and real pleasure forever. And it makes this current struggle that we live through now, Paul and Timothy's current struggle makes it worth it. Makes it worth it. The struggle we feel to sin, the temptation to sin, to swerve from the truth, the sorrow and suffering we have in this life on this side of eternity is worth it because we know that the gospel is true because it has been revealed to us through God's faithful and true Word.
We need to lean on God's word, trust his Word. And finally, in verse 19, we get a callback to number 16. Let's read verse 19 one more time. It says, 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.
Finally, point three, confidence in His Word, in God's Word. Here in verse 19, we're presented with a, a firm foundation that's a two a twofold seal. First, the Lord knows who are his, and then let everyone who names the name of the lord depart from iniquity. And these, if you were to translate Numbers 16 into Greek, these phrases appear in Numbers 16. So this is a callback to Numbers 16.
And, in in in Numbers 16 is a story where Moses's leadership is challenged. It's Korah's rebellion. Maybe you've remember you remember the story. You've read it in your quiet time. Well, three men in particular, Korah, Dathan, and, Abiram, who are Levites along with 250 other Levites stand up to Moses's leadership and try to take over the priesthood.
They go to Moses in verse 3 of Numbers 16. It says, they, these men and these 250 assembled themselves together against Moses and Aaron saying to them, you have gone too far for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? They're twisting the truth of God's Word in Numbers 16. They're twisting Moses's words. They're twisting God commands, God command God's commandments. They're trying to use it for their own gain. They're saying there's this thing wrong over here, but really they're using it for their own means and for their own glory. In verse 5, Moses responds and he says to Korah and all his company, in the morning, the Lord will show you who is His and who is holy, and he will bring him near or bring him near to Him. The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to Him.
So Moses says in the morning, we're gonna meet, the whole congregation of Israel, and we're gonna see who is the Lord's servant. If it's Korah and your men or if it's Moses, and then just before they meet, God tells Moses to have Israelites flee to flee and then Moses prophesies and the earth splits. Maybe you remember this. The earth splits and it swallows up these three men and the 250, people that are with them. In verse 34, it says, and all of Israel who are around them fled at their cry where they said, lest the earth swallow us up and fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.
So why would Paul tell Timothy this story? Such an interesting Numbers 16 reference in 2 Timothy. Well, first, I think Paul is rightly handling God's Word. He's demonstrating what he's commanding him to do. Hey, Hey, you remember this passage number 16, it has application for you today.
Why do we preach God's word so that our hearts and affections might be stirred to be obedient to God's word? But it's a story where the man of God is being questioned by lies, being, being given a message that's false, and he's these three men are getting God's people to believe something that is false. But is Moses left alone in the story? Is he abandoned? Certainly not. Certainly not. The Lord knows who are his.
He cares for Moses in the story and he judges, God judges rightly those who are in active rebellion against Him. There's a comfort to Timothy that God has not forgotten him, but also that those who are opposing you, Timothy, will face real judgment for their disobedience to God's Word. John 10:14-15, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd and I know my own and they know me. Just as the father knows me and I know the father, I lay down my life for my sheep.
Jesus knows who are his. He knows Timothy. He cares for Timothy. He's laid down his life for Timothy.
Friends, if we trust in Christ, we can have confidence that He won't swallow us up and instead He will care for us like the sheep in this store in John 10, and He will lead us well. But if we stand opposed to God, there is real judgment for our sin and for ungodliness. And so if you're here today and you do not know Christ, don't meet Him in judgment. Instead, meet Him today and see that He has swallowed up death so that we might have life in Christ. See the assurance we have and God saying He knows who are His.
He is faithful and He is strong enough to strong enough to rescue us from our sins. Paul then reminds Timothy and us, like those who saw God's judgment against Korah, tells them to run from them, to flee from these lies. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. And friends, the call for us today is simple. Listen to this fatherly advice from Paul to Timothy, rightly handle the Word of Truth so that we might walk in Truth, trust Jesus, and have your life follow that belief and be a person of the book.
Practice what it calls you to do. Run from sin and run to Jesus and implement it into your life that you might see the riches of obedience to a merciful and kind God. Let's pray together this morning.