Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | 2 Timothy 1:5-14 (NIV)
5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. 6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. 13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
We’re starting a new sermon series talking about endurance. Over the next four weeks, we’ll explore what happens when you do something for Christ – when you venture out into the unknown, try something new, are bold – and it fails. With big questions like, “How do we handle when we are faced with hard times, failures in the church, and the temptation to give up?” we will look to 2 Timothy for assistance. 2 Timothy is Paul’s last letter before his death. In this letter, Paul is writing to encourage his co-worker and former student, Timothy who is working in Ephesus. By listening to Paul’s words of encouragement, we can learn how to deal with hard moments and setbacks.
The Reality of Faithful Obedience
Have you ever experienced failure in your life? I know I have. There have been times when I procrastinated too long and couldn’t get a project done. There have been times when I didn’t put enough energy or thoughtfulness into something and it failed. But the most painful failures come when you do the work, you make sure you’re organized, you do everything right and it still fails. Those are the kinds of failures that sting. When those kinds of failure hit, it doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been in the past – they still hurt.
Do you remember back to 1986? Do you happen to remember what major failure happened in January of that year? It was the space shuttle Challenger. It disintegrated only 73 seconds after takeoff. This was a horrible failure which cost the lives of seven people. What’s crazy is that before this point, there had already been 24 successful space flights – in fact the space shuttle Challenger had made 9 successful flights before this point. In total, there were 135 space flights during the space shuttle program. Yet, we remember two of them mainly – Challenger and Colombia. Why? Because these were the failures. These were the ones which cost lives and ended in disaster. These kinds of failures make us want to never try something again for fear of the grave repercussions we have experienced.
This type of failure is common to the human experience – and being so, it is a part of the Christian experience too. During our last sermon series, we looked at sowing seeds of faith, nurturing those seeds, being bold, and saying yes to God. But what happens when we do all those things – when we’re brave enough to plant seeds, give them Christian love, are courageous enough to leave our comfort zones – what happens when we say yes to God and we fail? When we put events together to reach out to neighbors and it doesn’t pan out. When we do the work of organizing something to meet people’s needs and no one comes to it? What happens when we try to be faithful, and we end up seemingly worse than we started?
The Good News in these situations, is that this is a part of Christian work. Things will not go as we expect, and there will be times when we feel like complete failures. So, the question is not if we fail, but when we fail, what do we do? How do we make it through the failure? This is the very question which Paul has to answer in his second letter to Timothy.
How to Endure
In our scripture passage, we see a few things. One, Timothy is someone of true faith. Paul begins by saying, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” Timothy has been given this sincere faith – one in which he truly believes in with all his soul – by his mother and grandmother. Notice what Paul says here. Because of this true faith, you need to fan the gift of this faith into flame.
Timothy has been given a gift – his mother and grandmother have taught him the faith, have instilled in him the practices of a true believer, and now it is up to him to fan the flame. It is easy to stop where we are. When we meet obstacles, or challenges it is easier to do nothing or stay in one place than move forward. We can see from this letter that Timothy seems to have a want to do that too. But Paul reminds him, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.”
The Spirit does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. Wow. Faith has been given to us, but we get to choose it for ourselves. When we fan the flame and welcome the Spirit in, we are made strong, filled with love, and made whole in self-discipline.
The second thing Paul makes clear is that there will be suffering. He says, “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. And of this Gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am.” We have been saved and called. We are a people who have known the love of Christ and have benefited from His sacrifice – not because of anything we have done or because we deserve it, but because of Jesus’ own choice of grace, we have been given this life. Yet this life does not come without its challenges.
Because of this new life, there will be times we suffer. There will be hard times because there are forces around us which want us to fail and they will take any opportunity to have us believe that we have, indeed, failed. Especially in moments where we actually have slight success – or success of any kind – if it is not monumental, these forces will have us believe that we have failed.
Paul says it is because of the Gospel itself that we suffer. Which brings us to the third thing Paul points out: we need to guard our hope. Paul continues, “Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.”
Even though we fail, even when we suffer, even when it seems that things are crumbling around us – we are not ashamed. Why is this? How can we endure through suffering and failures? Because we have hope anchoring us in the midst of the storms of life and that hope is Christ Jesus. As Paul says, “because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.” Paul calls us to guard what has been entrusted to you: the hope of Jesus Christ, the work of the Church, and the Kingdom of God made real on earth – by the power of the Holy Spirit.
How We Apply This Today
So what does this all mean for us? How is this something we can live into today? Firstly, to endure through hard times and challenges, we need to remember to fan the flame. We have been given the gift of experiencing Who Jesus is. We have come to know Him through those who have passed the faith on to us, but now WE get to fan this flame of faith – this gift of hope – by spending time with God and growing our faith.
Secondly, Paul reminds us that being a Christian means suffering. It means dealing with hardships and failures. It means knowing that any set back will be used against us and made to look as if we’re no good.
And thirdly, that despite those failures and challenges, we need to guard our hope. We have been given hope in Jesus Christ that He is bigger than our problems, that He is an anchor for us in hard times and in the midst of the storms of life. When we place our hope in him, and guard it by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can make it through any hard time and see through the veil of failure to the reality of the coming Kingdom.
So let us spend time with God, grow our faith, be ready for hard times, and keep hope because Christ has made all things possible in Him. And for that, thanks be to God. Amen.