MARKS OF A FAITHFUL MAN

2 Timothy 2:1-6 (KJV)

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.

Paul told Timothy to teach those things he had taught him to "faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."

·   Of course we teach as many as we are able.

·   Of course we will teach anyone who will allow us to teach them

But we want to look for and pray for a particular kind of person who will be faithful to preach what we give them to teach.

If you will notice the transition, I think verses 3-6 give us some hints of the sort of man who will be faithful to teach others also.

By the way, I realize there is some “bleed through” in this passage.

The faithful man is not just the sort of person Timothy is to look for in order to teach him to teach others also, it is the sort of man Timothy is supposed to strive to be.

A faithful man will 

*I. ENDURE HARDNESS

Vs 3

We love this verse don’t we?

Anyone who has gone to a Baptist church any length of time is aware of the verse but we are certainly glad we don’t have to put it to practice.

Notice three things:

A. It is personal

Thou

As I said, there is some “bleed through.” I do believe the passage is looking for those faithful men Timothy may teach to teach others also but he is not excluded.

Just remember, every piece of the Bible you and I can use to pressure someone else into compliance, applies to use too.

·   Every passage about witnessing

·   Every passage about holiness

·   Every passage about obedience

Any passage we might use to get our kids to behave is a passage that applies to us as well as it applies to them.

And since we have been given some leadership it applies to us first.

B. It is difficult

Hardness

It’s been pretty easy to be soldier of Jesus Christ the last couple hundred years.

We haven’t had to endure much hardness.

Just as men and even some women suffered and died so we could have liberty as citizens of these United States, other men and women suffered abuses, difficulties, hardness and death so we could serve the Lord in the comparative ease you and I have known.

What if we are asked to endure some hardness?

·   Maybe some extra time out ministering to others

·   Maybe some ridicule at work for taking a serious Christian stand

·   Maybe a larger offering to meet a certain goal at church

You name it.

You plug in whatever you might imagine could be asked of you.

·   Baptism

·   Reading your Bible every day

·   Faithfully attending all church services no matter what

·   Having a family member get upset that you put God before preferences

Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

C. It is not optional

Soldier

One of the most important things a soldier learns is that doing his duty is not optional.

Nobody likes what they will have to do on the field of combat.

That’s not the point. Everyone must do what he has to do or the cause will be lost.

·   Living for Christ.

·   Obeying His Word

·   Walking in Christian holiness

These are not optional.

You don’t have to do them to be saved but you do have to do them.

A faithful man will endure hardness.

A faithful man will 

*II. AVOID ENTANGLEMENTS

Vs 4

The last 200 years have not been hard on Christians in the United States, but they have been devastating.

We haven’t had to endure hardness

But we have struggled to avoid being entangled with the affairs of this life.

At one time in history a Baptist only wished to stay out of jail and alive.

Those haven’t been a real problem since the Bill of Rights was ratified. But:

·   We have had a problem with getting entangled in politics

·   We have had a problem getting entangled in wantonness

·   We have had a problem getting too attached to houses and cars

·   We have struggled with our entanglement with finances

The wealthier America became, and the more of that wealth Baptists shared in, the more entangled with the affairs of this life we have become.

I have a theory I am working on. I cannot yet prove it to be so, but I do have this theory

Prior to the American Revolution, Baptists were mostly poor and very persecuted in the Colonies.

There was only one place where Baptists had any freedom to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, and that was in Rhode Island.

The problem was that the Baptist’s convictions required that they venture out of Rhode Island into

·   Massachusetts,

·   Virginia, the

·   Carolina’s,

·   Georgia and

·   beyond,

with the gospel.

Baptist preachers all worked for their living because virtually everyone was required to give their tithes to pay for the government authorized church.

This led to two things that were consistently true about the Baptists

·   They were not entangled in politics

·   They were not involved in the discussion about slavery – they were poor and didn’t have any

During the Revolutionary War Baptist preachers did get involved.

As I understand it, they were at first opposed to the war but when it became certain it would happen, they dove in with both feet, hoping to influence whatever new government might come of it.

They were successful.

That success led to them becoming more politically entangled and with the easing of persecution, they become more prosperous.

I have not yet found one instance of a Baptist slave owner prior to the Revolutionary War.

But by 1840 the Baptists had already had their own Civil War and had split between the Northern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention.

And their split was, unquestionably over the issue of slavery.

The Northern Baptist Convention refused to approve a missionary because he owned slaves.

Barely 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Baptists had gone from poor, despised and barely fed believers, to fighting over whether slavery was immoral.

They had become entangled in politics and slavery.

A faithful man, one you can trust to teach what you taught him to teach will:

·   Endure hardness

·   Avoid entanglements and

A faithful man will 

*III. STRIVE LAWFULLY

Vs 5

I heard a program the other day where the host used Rick Warren, the founder of Saddleback Community Church and the author of Purpose Driven Life. The host pointed to several associations Warren has been involved in and showed how he is “agreeable with just about everyone he is around at the time.”

·   If he is around a Catholic, he is agreeable with Catholics

·   If he is around a Muslim, he is agreeable with Islam

·   If he is around a Calvinist, he is agreeable with Calvinism

He said it is frankly because Warren’s goal is to grow an organization, not to propagate a particular truth.

It’s called pragmatism; grow the work of God, no matter what the consequence. Someone who believes the goal is to build the ministry or the church rather than proclaim a particular set of doctrines, just cannot be counted upon to teach what he was taught. His core value is to grow, not to preserve truth.

So Paul told Timothy that he was to look for men who would strive lawfully.

Conclusion

He needed to find men who were committed to:

·   Endure hardness

·   Avoid entanglements and

·   Strive lawfully

Because without these commitments, they could not be trusted to:

·   Teach others what

·   Timothy had taught them that

·   Paul had taught him