Motivating a Spiritual Son
2 Timothy 1:1-5
As you know, the commitment of the ministry of Grace Community Church is a commitment to expository preaching and teaching of God's Word. We are committed week in and week out to explain the meaning of the scriptures. We desire to preach the Word as it says in 2 Timothy 4:2. And so over the years we have gone through book after book after book in God's holy Scripture and this morning we come to another one in our series, that the epistle of 2 Timothy. So, if you will, open your Bible to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and we'll begin by looking at the first five verses as Paul introduces this wonderful letter to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy.
Reading the text, "Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus, to Timothy my beloved son; grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day, longing to see you even as I recall your tears so that I may be filled with joy; for I am mindful of the sincere faith within you which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and I am sure that it is in you as well."
Some years ago I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting the magnificent and rather stunning city of Rome and spending several days wandering about in that great place, seeing all that history has to say and to visually represent through the art and the architecture and the structures of that ancient place. My mind was staggered at the scope of history represented in Rome because it goes back so many thousands of years. I was stunned by the magnificent architecture and the great works of art that I saw everywhere, from the Raphael statues in the little plazas of the city to the great works of art at the Vatican.
But one thing in my visit to Rome stood out above all other things and that was visiting the ruins of what was known as the Mamortine(?) Prison in the ancient city of Rome. When I say ruins I don't want to misrepresent the situation. What is now remaining of the Mamortine Prison is a dungeon in the ground, literally a circular pit about 30 feet in diameter with a hole at the top a little larger than that of a manhole in the street. That was the place of incarceration for the criminals of the time of the Apostle Paul. That prison today has on top of it a building and to see the prison you climb the stairs, enter the building and you're given a little bit of a tour. You look through the hole and you can see the pit underneath with its stone floor and stone walls in the shape of a circle. We were then allowed to go down into the pit and found there just a couple of things of interest. First of all, there was an altar built there by some Roman Catholics at some point in history. And then against one section of that circular pit there was a door, a great large door that was able to be pulled up and then dropped back down in place.
The guide instructed us concerning the altar which had been built in somewhat recent centuries and then told us that the door basically was there for execution purposes, that it was common to place prisoners, dropping them through the hole into the dungeon, up to about 30 to 35 prisoners. And then in order to make room for the next group of criminals, the door would be pulled open and running alongside that cell was the city sewage system of Rome. As the door was pulled open, the cell or dungeon would fill with the sewage and drown all of the prisoners and wash them back out. The door would be shut, the place would be drained and ready for another 30 to 35 criminals.
It was a moving experience not only because you could stand there and imagine what went on in that place with sanitation, without light, without any of the comforts that we might imagine to be absolutely necessary for existence. And you can imagine it jammed with 30 bitter, angry criminals about to be executed. But what made it so very stunning was that one of the people who has had a greater impact on my life than almost anyone who ever lived, one of the men who has been my teacher in many ways through the years of my ministry, one of the men whom I love beyond other men spent the last days of his life in that very hole in the ground. His name is the Apostle Paul. And I was moved deep within my heart as I contemplated him in that place awaiting execution. In a very public display of hatred for the Christ he taught and the gospel he preached, he was not drowned in sewage, he was taken out of that place and his head was placed on a block and an axe cut it off his body. And publicly the Romans said, "We will not tolerate the teaching of Jesus Christ nor anyone who represents Him."
And when you can think back and imagine the life of the Apostle Paul, a life of self‑sacrifice on behalf of the spread of the gospel, the life of a man who lived literally to communicate the greatest message the world has ever heard in order that men might know joy and grace and mercy and forgiveness and peace, when you imagine that that's how he ended his life it seems like such a tragic and ungrateful expression of man's response. What an unjust reward for an innocent man. Not just an innocent man but a man who had brought the good news of salvation to the very people who took his life. He had endured so much. In 2 Corinthians he chronicles a bit when he says, "In far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights in hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure and apart from such external things there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches," 2 Corinthians 11:23 and following.
All of this he endured, selflessly sacrificing his life and any comfort that anyone might assume to be just basic for the sake of reaching people with the wonderful good news of salvation in Jesus Christ and this is how it ends...in a stinking dark damp unsanitary pit in the ground occupied by a bunch of criminals, we find him. It's not the first time he's been in prison. He was in prison in Jerusalem. He was in prison in Caesarea. He was in prison in Philippi and he has been in prison even in Rome before this. His earlier imprisonment in Rome, however, was much mild...much more mild than this one. In fact then he was in house arrest and not actually in a prison at all. Under Roman guard but in a house where his friends could come and go freely and he could control the environment to some degree and there were comforts to be had in that place. In fact, in his house imprisonment he was able to write Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and the wonderful little letter to his friend Philemon. It was a productive time, a time when he could win many of Caesar's household to faith and so at the end of Philippians says, "Those in Caesar's household who are in the faith, greet you." But that was five or six years before this.
He had been released from that first house arrest and having been released, you remember, he went to Ephesus, met Timothy his son in the faith there, left Timothy in charge of the church at Ephesus to set it right for it wandered in terms of doctrine and behavior. And then pursued a missionary tour again from which he soon wrote a letter called 1 Timothy to tell Timothy exactly what to do in the church at Ephesus where he had left him. After writing 1 Timothy it's apparent that for a few years he wandered around preaching and teaching and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, if we can put the pieces together, we assume that he went from Ephesus over to Macedonia, visited Nicopolis, Crete, Militus and some think he may even as well have gone as far as Spain. He also very likely went to Troas. Now there's no chronicle of that, those are bits and pieces that we illicit out of his letters. We really have no specific record like we do in the book of Acts for his time prior to being imprisoned, for the time after his imprisonment gives us no such record. But no doubt for those five or six years between the first epistle and the second one, he is moving about ministering, preaching as he always did.
Suddenly in the midst of this new found freedom he is arrested. Very likely at the place called Nicopolis. What caused it to be, what made it happen that halted his progress? Well in 64 A.D. Nero who was an insane madman torched the city of Rome. He set a match to the place and burned it. Not wanting to bear the public shame and the public wrath for that kind of thing, he pushed it off on this group called Christians and blamed them for the burning of the city of Rome. As a result of that, an avalanche of animosity broke out against the believers in Jesus Christ and it was in the radiating of that animosity out of Rome that permeated the whole Roman Empire that finally caught the Apostle Paul eventually and caused him to be arrested because he was the leading spokesman for the Christian faith. He was then taken back to Rome and dropped into the hole in the ground at the Mamortine Prison.
And so he is there because of a furious wave of persecution. The leading Christians have been arrested, many have been executed and Paul, of course, is next. As we come to 2 Timothy that's the scene in which we find the Apostle Paul, sitting in the dungeon. His liberty of a few years has now ended and he is back in the most difficult incarceration of his life. And in that dungeon he sets out to write the last letter he ever wrote. This is his "swan song." This is the final will and testament of the Apostle Paul. These are his last words and as such we should listen to them with great great concern and commitment.
Now he chooses to write to Timothy. Of all the people that he might have written to, of all the churches that he might have written to, he chooses to write to Timothy and there is great reason for that which we shall see in a moment. Let me give you a little look at his circumstances, okay?
Chapter 1 verse 16 tells us he is in chains. It remarks about not being ashamed of my chains. He is chained in that place. Furthermore, in verse 17 it says that when Onesiphorus came to Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me...which means to say it was an obscure place, hard to find. And perhaps there were not too many people who were sort of in the Christian network who wanted at all to be associated with Paul and those who sought to find him may have had great difficulty in doing so. So he was in a place hard to find and in fact a place where he was chained.
Chapter 2 verse 9 tells us he was in a place with criminals, an imprisonment as a criminal. Even so the Word of God, he acknowledges, is not imprisoned. Further in chapter 4 we get a little closer to the heart of this man. He knows he's near his own execution, chapter 4 verse 6, "I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come." He knows his death is imminent, he knows it is near. And what makes it so very sad, down in verse 16, when he was arrested and set to defend himself it says, "At my first offense no one supported me but all deserted me," and then says with such loving kindness, "May it not be counted against them," which sounds like Stephen when he was being stoned praying for the ones who stoned him and like Christ who when being crucified asked the Father to forgive His crucifiers. But he says, "At my first offense no one supported me," everyone was afraid of the persecution and they left him on his own. That is the situation. Not only is he experiencing physical discomfort but the deep emotional pain of having been deserted by everybody. That's the gratitude that a redeemed church has for the beloved source of that message of redemption? That's all he can expect out of people to whom literally he gave his life in the expounding of the gospel of Jesus Christ? He only has one friend with him, verse 11, only Luke is with me. Only Luke was somewhere nearby and it may be that Luke was a part of the letter in the sense that it could have been even dictated to him, if not written by Paul in that dungeon.
Going back to chapter 1 for a moment and verse 15, we find a little more about his situation and the sorrow and sadness of it. In verse 15 it says, "You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia...that's Asia Minor...all of them in the area of Ephesus and the surrounding area turned away from me." Not only is there no one to his defense, not only is there no one but Luke in Rome to be alongside of him, but no one in Asia Minor has stuck true to the Apostle. They've all defected. What sadness. What a way to come to the end of your ministry. When you should be having accolades and you should be literally embraced by all the people who have loved you because you brought them Christ, instead you're alone, you're in a pit in the company of criminals and no one around to care.
In chapter 4 we get a little deeper into the heart of Paul in the sadness of the time. Verse 10 he says, "For Demas having loved this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica," must have broken his heart. "Crescens, he's gone to Galatia; Titus, he's gone to Dalmatia." Verse 12, "Tychicus I sent to Ephesus." Backing up one verse to 11 again, "Only Luke is with me." What a sad time. Nobody to defend him. Nobody to be with him. And he's still so concerned about ministry, one man forsakes him, Demas, and the other he sends on missions of the gospel...Titus, Tychicus and Crescens have gone to minister and I'm alone.
Boy, when I think about that I wonder how it would be to spend your whole life in absolute total self‑sacrifice, giving yourself up for a people so they might come to know Christ and then be literally alone at the end. Sad time. And he has needs...he has needs. He is lonely. Chapter 1 verse 4 he says, "I long to see you, Timothy...I long to see you," it's a very strong word as we shall see in a moment. He literally hurts inside over the pain of wanting to have the companionship of Timothy.
Chapter 4 verse 9 he repeats to Timothy, "Make every effort to come to me soon. I need you, Timothy, and I don't think I have very long." And then in verse 11 he says, "Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service." That was the same Mark that once Paul said "I don't want him in my company, he's..he's a coward, he doesn't have courage," and he split up with Barnabas over that issue, now he wants Timothy to come and bring that beloved child in the faith also, Mark.
And then in verse 13 he says, "And when you come, bring the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus and the books, especially the parchments." He needed things for his own physical comfort. Bring me the cloak, at least it will be a place on the stone where I can lie down and it will keep me warm when I need that. Bring me that cloak, a cloak of warmth, a cloak of rest, a cloak of privacy, if nothing else. And bring the books, the parchments, the things most dear to his heart, the things on which was written the Word of God. In verse 21, again he says, "Make every effort to come before winter." Please hurry, Timothy.
Your heart almost breaks when you come to understand the scene. Apparently Nero had wanted to kill him already one time but something had stopped Nero and he had been spared from the lions of death, as it were. If for no other reason God spared him then in order that he might write this marvelous second epistle that we might be blessed by it. So it's probably about 67 A.D. or so as he takes up pen or dictates to Luke and this is what's on his heart. He's coming to the end of his life. He says in chapter 4, "I have finished the course, I fought the good fight, I've kept the faith, I'm ready to be offered, this is it. And I want to say this before I go..." And he writes to Timothy because Timothy is the key to carrying on the work. So what he is doing in 2 Timothy is passing the torch, passing the baton, passing the mantle, as it were, of the prophet. He at this particular time is in his upper sixties, maybe 66 or 67 years of age and having spent his life now ready to go to be with the Lord, having accomplished all that God wanted him to accomplish. Timothy is in his upper thirties, maybe 36 or 37, and carries the brunt of responsibility for ministry and extending the kingdom in the next generation. Timothy is his child in the faith, his protege, his student, his disciple. And Timothy faces tough times, persecution, hostility, animosity, resentment to the message, resistance to the truth. And it will not be easy.
We believe that at the time of the writing of this, Timothy is still in Ephesus. He's been there