DON’T BE ASHAMED

2 Timothy 1:8 KJV

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

For some, the shame of failure is more than they can bear.

In about 2001 Enron Corporation, a gigantic company involved in “energy commodities” came under investigation for illegal accounting practices. 

Over the course of the next few years the company failed and millions of investment dollars were lost.

Founder, Kenneth Lay was indicted but died of a heart attack before being sentenced.

A successful Enron executive – J Clifford Baxter, one of the original men to report the accounting scandal, was scheduled to testify against Enron but before his testimony, ashamed, he committed suicide.

One of his associates later testified that shortly before Baxter shot himself he said, "They're calling us child molesters. That will never wash off."

• Here is the Apostle Paul in a prison cell.
• He knows that they will soon execute him.

One of the Apostle’s concerns is that Timothy not be ashamed.

The word ashamed means "to impose disgrace." 

 The lost world thought of Christianity as a disgrace. 

· The believers were hated and hunted down

· The majority of the wealthy, worldly wise, and powerful rejected the gospel, in fact

· The believers themselves were only a mere handful of people in comparison to the populations of the world.

The world would have considered the Christian movement a disgrace by worldly standards. 

So Paul encouraged Timothy not to be ashamed

Paul exhorted Timothy, 

*I. DON’T BE ASHAMED OF THE TESTIMONY OF THE LORD

· Jesus Christ came, not as a world conqueror but as a lowly babe in the manger. 

· In His life He had no place to lay His head.

· He suffered a humiliating death at a young age.

*But His gospel message is pure and powerful. It changes the eternal destiny of immortal souls. 

There is nothing in the testimony of Christ to be ashamed of.

Paul then urged Timothy, 

*II. DON’T BE ASHAMED OF PAUL’S PRISON EXPERIENCES

Paul had gone from 

• an "up and coming" in the Jew's religion to 
• an itinerant preacher who wasn't even very well received of other Christians and finally 
• a prisoner sentenced to death for his message. 

On the human level Paul's experience would not appear to be one we would desire to follow. 

But Paul's life wasn't lived on the human level. His treasures were of a different sort. 

While Paul died an ignoble death in his day, his message is impacting lives 2000 years later. 

That is nothing to be ashamed of.

Finally Paul charged Timothy,

*III. DON’T BE ASHAMED TO PARTAKE IN THESE SAME AFFLICTIONS

It's not a message most will comprehend. 

Those who are not saved could never understand why a believer would choose a life of affliction. 

The majority of professing Christians would never consider partaking in the afflictions of the gospel. 

But those who will enter into these afflictions will find the power of God more than capable of sustaining them.

Conclusion

Following the execution of the Apostle Paul, and for the next almost 1700 years, Christians were

• Hated
• Hunted
• In Prisoned and
• Executed

Those 1700 years are filled with accounts of: 

• Sons who watched their fathers and mothers suffer for their faith
• Mothers who watched their children suffer for their faith and
• Churches who watched their pastors suffer for their faith

These were men and women and children who were not ashamed of Christ or of those who suffered for Him.

Don’t you be ashamed either.