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Employment in an Enlightened Age By Stephen Bignall
2 Tim 2 and 3

Mankind has always believed that with the progression of time, the race has progressed.
It's symptomatic of every age that that age believes that they are the enlightened ones.
I would put to you that in our age, in this late 20th century, that is very much the opinion of humanity in general, that we are enlightened.
Looking back over the history of mankind as they understand it, most people would believe that somehow this age is more informed, more enabled than any other age, less primitive, less incapable, having more knowledge and understanding of themselves and of the environment in which they exist.
And we've got to consider that because I believe it's a fact and it's where our unbelieving friends, our unbelieving enemies, our work colleagues, our family, it's where they're coming from.
They are convinced that they have outgrown the necessity of primitive religion, simple religion, simple faith in one all-powerful redeeming God.
They've outgrown the necessity of redemption. They believe that to believe that there is such a thing as guilt and eternal guilt, to believe there is such a thing as punishment for guilt and eternal punishment is primitive nonsense.
They want to be emancipated, liberated from these pangs of conscience that they see are simply hangovers from a less intellectual, less understanding, a less philosophical, a less enlightened age.
Now the Bible describes the race quite differently from the way modern man would describe himself.
In chapter three in the first seven verses we have a praisee of the human race. But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, difficult times will come, dark times will come.
The last days are those days that came after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other places the writers of the New Testament speak about being in the last days.
So by the last days we're not talking about just these last days, because obviously Paul wrote nineteen centuries ago, we're talking about those days that progress day after day from the time of the resurrection of Christ.
In those days there will be a progression of peril, a progression of darkness. So the idea here that they not only will come, but they will continue to come and they will continue to progress to be more perilous.
And the reason is this, for men will be lovers of themselves. That's the first and fundamental problem that humanity has, a love affair with themselves.
And it's the first and fundamental problem that we as human beings have to deal with. We are in love with ourselves and we serve ourselves by nature.
And some of the out workings of that follow. Lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving.
Slanderers without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Having a form of godliness but denying its power and from such people turn away. For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women laid down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This is the word of God. These are incontestable facts. They are not only backed up by what we see around us but they're written in heaven as an indictment against humanity and as a warning to God's people.
What we see around us typifies this description of the last times. What we see within us typifies this description of the last times. We wrestle against our love for pleasure as believers.
If we are not, if you are not a believer this morning, you succumb and you seek to fulfil your love for pleasure and it has a higher priority in your life than God, if God has any priority in your life at all.
We struggle with self-control. This is the age of anarchy and we are ill-disciplined and struggle to control ourselves in our society. Constantly outbreaks of disobedience, of sin, of harm, of hurt, constantly outbreaks in our society are noted and reported in our news.
Constantly in our homes there are outbreaks of this selfish, pleasure-loving, self-seeking and God has not called His people to consist in this way, to have their lives consist in this way.
He has not enabled us by His Holy Spirit to live as light and salt that we should return to these perilous times in which we live, that we should go back and immerse ourselves once more in those ways in which we walked.
And if we do not walk differently, if we do not testify powerfully, then those who walk in darkness will not be brought into the light.
I'm not talking about being saved here, I'm talking about being put under the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the first and foremost work of the Christian, to take the light and to expose the darkness, to take the salt and to press it in to the corruption.
Now the work of salvation, the work of enlightening the mind, of seasoning the heart with grace is God's work and God does that work. But our work is to be light bearers.
We carry the torch of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We cup in our hands the salt that will season the hearts of men with goodness, will renovate their souls, will bring to life their hearts.
We are the vessels and you will see that in your private meditations if you look in the second part of chapter 2, that there are vessels in the Lord's house. We are the vessels by which God conveys His Gospel to the world through His Word.
Now we have an employment. But before we can be employed, we must be in a position to serve God.
Now I'm speaking to my fellow creatures here who do not know God. Perhaps I do not know you. But God knows you and you may be ignorant of Him.
You may think that you have experienced Him simply because you have experienced this worship gathering or experienced His Word. But that is not to experience God.
To hear His Word, to participate in a worship service is not to experience God. God is a spirit and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
You must know the truth of God. You must be set free from the peril, the darkness in which you live and serve yourself before you can be employed as light and as salt.
And God has to do that. And God will do that. God will do that. He will reach sovereignly into this congregation and save individuals. He has done it. He will continue to do it.
It was the reason why the Apostle Paul continued to suffer. He says, I endure all things for the elect's sake. For the elect's sake. For those whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world.
I continue to preach. I continue to suffer. I endure all things for the sake of those whom God will call. That His Gospel might be manifested in the world and He through that Gospel might sovereignly draw each soul whom He loved before the foundation of the world.
And your responsibility my friend this morning, your responsibility is to commit yourself to Him. To turn to Him now. If you do not know Him, if you have not experienced that change in your life, that incontestable change.
Once there was darkness, now there is light. Once there was ignorance, now there is knowledge. Once there was coolness and fear and even hatred towards Him, now there is love towards Him.
This is what God will do. You commit your way to Him. He will draw you by His Spirit to Himself. He will change you by His power. He will make you a child. He will make you a son, a daughter.
He will make you an image bearer once more who isn't any longer so deficiently short of His glory. Who isn't any longer so terribly ill-equipped, so unequipped to serve Him.
But now you will have the Spirit of God dwelling in you by which you will be enabled to stir up the gift that is in you. For God will put the grace and God will put the gift and He will cause you to serve.
And if He does not do that, then no one, no one can do that for you except God. You must turn to Him. You must turn to Him. I have to qualify what I'm about to say because I'm now going to speak to those whom He has called, to those who have turned to Him.
We have an employment, brethren. We have a calling. And the first thing we want to note about that employment, that light bearing, that salt seasoning, is that it's extraordinary and it's a difficult employment.
It's extraordinary. It's not mundane. It's not natural. It's extraordinary. And it is difficult.
And if we take the first portion of our text, we see that Paul in his love and his concern for this young pastor who is distant from him, Paul's in prison, possibly in Rome, soon to be executed according to all the traditions he was.
And he writes to one who weeps for him, who cares for him, whom he nurtured in the faith and who's struggling in the church that he's pastoring. And in the place where he's ministering, he says, you, therefore, you must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
You see the extraordinary nature of Timothy's employment. He's a soldier of Jesus Christ. You see the difficult nature of his employment. He must endure hardship. Now, that word endure has the idea of patient forbearance.
Now, a soldier, the most difficult time for a soldier is not, I would put to you, when they are in the heat of battle. That's not the most difficult time for a soldier because when the battle is joined, the soldier has no time to think.
He must act instinctively. He must act as his reflexes have been trained. He must think as his mind has been schooled and he must battle.
But when he is preparing to go into the field or when he is enduring imprisonment because of a defeat on the field or when he is struggling to get his weaponry ready or when he is thinking in the trenches that he's got to go over the top now, he's got to meet the enemy in the way,
they are the most difficult and perilous times and it's the same for the believer. As you patiently endure a situation that seems so difficult, as you live in your home situation with an unbelieving partner or without a partner,
as you seek in difficulties with your partner to overcome in the name of Christ, as you seek to take each child and bring them before the altar of God that they might be consecrated to him,
as you make your way out of your home and into the world and it's not a time of great excitement and it's not a time when you're filled with passions and a glorious vision is before your eyes and you're involved in something where you really feel this is a spiritual warfare.
It's the everyday, the mundane business of life and for a soldier that will be, unless he loses his life on the field, the largest portion of his soldiering will be in regiment, will be in the everyday mundane activities and it will be those other times when he's employed in the heat of the battle that all the patient endurance,
that all the schooling and training will be brought to bear in that moment and he will overcome. So there's a difficult and an extraordinary task. It's a holy task, it's separate, it's sacred, it's pure and it's empowered by God.
It's separate by virtue of the fact that those who are employed in it have been rescued. Did you notice the little reading on the front of the bulletin? I spotted it in the Banner of Truth and I liked it so I put it in.
It's about a lifeboat station, a little allegory about a lifeboat station and the allegory of course is for the church. The church like a lifeboat station. The church going out in the boats, dragging in the shipwrecked, dragging them in and that is what the church's job is.
Now those who are enlisted in Christ's army are rescued. They're all rescued. They're all, if you like, refugees. They're all pilgrims and strangers who have been brought in to the commonwealth of God.
They're a mercenary army in one sense but they're not a mercenary army in another. They're mercenary in the sense that their origin was earthly but now they are heavenly. They're not mercenary in this sense. They are the sons and daughters of the one whom they serve.
Have you ever seen such an army? The sons and daughters of the one whom they serve, have you ever seen such a commander? That he would be the brother, that he would be the father, that he would be the guide, that he would be the counsellor, that he would be the one who comes alongside, that he would be the shield, that he would be the armour of his army.
That he would go in the fall and win the victory and then employ his army simply in incorporating that victory, making it a reality in all its aspects. Have you ever seen such a commander? What an extraordinary person is the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a marvellous commander is our God and what a difficult task we are called to. It's separate because we're rescued from the world and given to the service of the heavenly King. It's sacred because we are meant to fulfil the purposes of God.
Can you see the holiness of that, the sacredness of that? What a treasure is put into earthen vessels that we should be meant to fulfil the purposes of God Almighty.
But this is what Paul says to Timothy. He says here in 1 verse 9, God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, rescued us you see, saved us, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
But now has been revealed by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ. According to his own purpose, for his ends he saved us. According to his grace, to his ends he saves us and then he appoints us.
And you see this in verse 11. We have seen through God that he has abolished death, brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. We who know Christ have seen this.
If you have not seen light, the abolishment of death, life and immortality through Jesus Christ, you do not know him. But if you have, seeing that, you've been appointed. He's enlisted you in his army.
Paul was appointed a preacher. He was appointed an apostle. Now in one sense we are not appointed apostles but in another we are the sent ones. We are the ambassadors of Christ. We plead with men. We represent the king in this earthly realm and a teacher of the Gentiles.
That was Paul's appointment. There are different members of the army. Some members never go to war. The cooks, the quartermasters, they provision others to be in the forefront of the battle. Others are constantly on the march. But this is God's army and he has appointed it to his purpose and by his grace.
And so that's why it's sacred and it's pure because of the spiritual cleansing which we have undergone by God's power. It's pure because of the spiritual cleansing which we have undergone by God's power. How could Paul say in verse 3, I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience?
How could he say that? Imprisoned God's people? Consented to Stephen's death and saw him staying? Railed against them? The man who said in Romans that he sees a law warring in his members against God? That he feels sin eating into his soul against God?
But yet says that after the inner man he rejoices in the law of God? Yet he sees in his flesh he serves the law of sin? How could such a man who endured such struggles, who has such a history, how can he say he has a pure conscience? Because he knows the forgiveness of God. He knows the power of Christ.
He believes in the blood washing of his conscience by Jesus Christ. He believes he stands before God righteous only because Christ died for his sins in accordance with the Scriptures. And so his conscience is pure. He avails himself of that and his conscience is pure. He returns to that. He has nothing else to return to.
How can I preach this morning except with a blood washed conscience? How can you worship God this morning except with a blood washed conscience? Because each one of us this week have committed sins worthy of help even in our own mission to serve God as he should be served.
Let alone in the commission of the thoughts, the intents and the actions that have been ours during the week. But Paul serves with a pure conscience because he knows the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And not only does he serve with a pure conscience but in Timothy we see that there are those who serve with genuine faith, sincere faith, unmixed faith. Not made an amalgam with impurity but unmixed sincere and genuine faith. How is that possible?
Here's why the light can be born and undiminished. Here's why it can be lifted out from under the bushel. Here's why the soul has seasoning. Because God gives the gift of faith. God empowers and upholds the gift of faith. God channels through faith his grace and equips us to serve him.
So it's pure because God has brought it about. It's pure because Christ has purchased it and brought it to pass upon each child that they should be washed and cleansed and have a conscience that is not condemned.
It's genuine, it's unmixed and it's sustained by the Holy Spirit. And you'll see that in verse 14 of chapter 1. That good thing which was committed to you keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
A certain type of Calvinism will inevitably lead someone to believe that all activity, all attempt, all engagement and vigour, all exhortation to be doing is really extraneous.
Because God in his sovereignty and his goodness knows the end from the beginning. He has no need of creature help. And that's true, he doesn't have any need of creature help.
But the whole purpose of the Gospel is to redeem a people to his glory. And he employs, the marvel of it is, he employs the people he rescues to be about rescuing others.
The means that he ordains to bring light and salt into the world are the very ones who have been lit, the very ones who have been seasoned. They then go and partake of that good seed that was sown in their hearts. They grab it by the handful and spread it out themselves to others.
And that's done by the Holy Spirit. We must hold fast to our Pauline, our biblical, our gracious position. But let's not abandon it in one part by believing that fatalism is somehow the occupation of a spiritual man.
Fatalism is the occupation of an unbelieving man. We don't sit back and say whatever will be will be. It is the Lord, let him do as he sees fit. Paul's not talking in the language of a man who's just accepted.
Well, I'm going to die pretty soon. There's not a lot I can do about it. I know the Lord will accomplish his purposes no matter what I do, so I'll just prepare myself for death.
No, he's writing, writing, writing. He's writing to Timothy in his imprisonment. He's writing to other Christians. He's receiving visitors. He's preaching to the guard around him. He's even preaching probably to the Emperor as he stands before him to be put to death.
No, he's going to live out. He says, I'm chained, but the Word of God is not chained. So he preaches. So he sets about his master's business even in the last moments of his existence, because he believes in the power and the sovereignty of God and it empowers him. It encourages him.
You see the difference between a fatalism that doesn't see that God in his sovereignty has woven our responsible actions into his perfect and eternally decreed plan.
Our responsibilities are interwoven in God's eternal plan. Our responses are considered and woven into the fabric of God's decrees and he calls us to exercise our wills to do his will and ourselves to be obedient to him.
What a marvelous thing. What a certain prospect there is that the Gospel will accomplish all that he purposes. A difficult and an extraordinary employment, but one in which we must be involved.
Now here are some pointers, some marvelous directions to Timothy. And what struck me as I was, this is the second point, that there are principles here by which we can be employed. The first point, it's extraordinary. It's difficult, but there are principles here provided by God by which we can be employed.
Now I thought it was a marvelous thing that of all the occupations in the ancient world, God caused Paul to choose three that still exist today. Three that will exist until the end of the world. That of the soldier, that of the athlete and that of the farmer. Perpetual, if you like, until the end of the world.
There will always be in our warring world of fallen men, soldiers. They'll always be there. And haven't we seen that in the United Nations peacekeeping forces and in Bosnia and in Rwanda and in China or in Vietnam, in South America?
Haven't we seen it in Sri Lanka with the Tamils? Haven't we seen it in India and Pakistan? Haven't we seen it in Africa? Haven't we seen it in the Philippines? Haven't we seen it in the Second World War that tore this world and convulsed it? Will we see it in our age, in our nation? Perhaps we will.
Haven't we seen it in our near borders in New Guinea? The warrings and the ragin's here in Jaya? In our age there will always be soldiers. In our age there will always be athletes. They, if you like, they are the idols of our age. The athletic, the gymnast, the contender, the competitor.
The arena is the fascination of humanity. Always humanity will always desire to see those from her midst contending with one another. They will always be entertained by that. There will be always those who seek the accolades and who strive to be the best, the fastest, the greatest, the strongest.
That program, Gladiators, on the television I believe has a very high rating. Well what is it except the soft soap option of the arena back in Rome? You put pads all over them and you make sure that what they're hitting one another with can't kill them. But it's the same thing. Man loves an athlete. He loves to see the strong contending with one another. And there will always be farmers, otherwise we'd starve.
Because since the fall of Adam in the sweat of our brow we've been required to partake of our substance. We've had to work. As a consequence of the fall we had to work to feed ourselves.
Now those three callings are used by Paul to impart some key principles. The first principle is this. That we've got to campaign as the people of God with patience and with grace. And we find that in our text. You must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
We've got to be patient. We've got to endure. We've got to possess our vessels in patience. There won't always be the exciting, the enthralling, the openly, if you like, attractive engagements of the spiritual life. There'll be the difficult, there'll be the hard to be understood, there'll be the trying, the harrowing, the weakening, the challenging aspects of everyday life we have to endure and be patient in and we have to overcome.
And they'll be seasoned with grace. But secondly we must campaign purposely avoiding entanglements. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life. That he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
This is the how. This is the how of the Gospel. We know what we are. We know what we should be doing. But how? How can we do it? We must not entangle ourselves in the affairs of this life.
A good soldier is not one who is found in the tavern while on active duty. A good soldier is not the one who is found sleeping in his bed far from the front when he's on active duty. Uriah the Hittite was a good soldier.
That's an aspect that I've thought upon as I read the story of Bathsheba and Uriah and David. Uriah wouldn't go home. He knew the battle was raging. Uriah slept at the king's door even though the king had called him from the field.
In his goodness, in his obedience, he was slain. But Christ isn't like David in that sense. Christ is the perfect king, the perfect man. He looks for that sort of obedience and faith in his children. That they would sleep at his door on his doorstep rather than entangle themselves in the affairs of this life.
Now, unlike a soldier who must leave his home in his kindred and go away from the place in which he perhaps wrought in another occupation, the soldiers of Jesus Christ are dispersed amongst home and kindred, are dispersed amongst the occupations of men.
So what Paul's not saying is we have to withdraw ourselves from this life to the point where all we do is meditate upon the precepts of the Lord, shun the evil that we see around us and withdraw into a militant, monastic community.
That's not what Paul's saying. What he's saying is that as we seek to serve Christ, to wage a good warfare, to fight the good fight, we must not allow legitimate employments to entangle our feet.
Our business must not dominate us to the point that we no longer run the race, laying aside every weight. Our family must be an altar upon which we sacrifice to God, not an entanglement with which we're turned away from serving God.
It's a warfare being a family man, a family woman. It's a warfare being a child as a believer. God's called us to fight against principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places. It's a warfare. The family's under siege. It's a battlefield.
It doesn't mean that to disentangle ourselves for the service of Christ we neglect our family. It means just the opposite for a family person. It means that we build up our family, that we fight the fight there, that we lay hold of eternal life there.
It's also the same in our workplace. It means that we have to, as it were, not take the gloss off our armour when we go into work, not cloak our weaponry, not hide the crest that is upon our chest, but rather that we should live and proclaim Christ.
It's not as arrogant and loud, not as those who have just contempt for those around them, but the gentle servant of Christ, the one who in meekness instructs those that oppose.
And you can read about that also in the latter half of this chapter too.
The servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are in opposition.
See, it's no new thing that the world is in opposition to the Gospel. And there's a certain frame that we have to adopt in our light bearing. There's a certain position that we have to take in our salt seasoning.
It has to be humility. It has to be gentleness. No lack of firmness, no lack of incisiveness, but there's a servant mentality. There's a gentleness of Christ.
He was gentle. He was humble. He could have condemned in dreadful terms his murderers, but he didn't. He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
How meekly, as a lamb before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He could have railed upon Pilate. He could have said, you are in authority. God has ordained a sword. You are putting me to death unlawfully. You will be judged.
And he didn't say that. He didn't say that to Pilate. He was silent. He was humble. And we are called all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
We are to serve in the light and the example of Christ, that we might know the victory that has overcome the world.
Kevin was talking about Jesus Christ, the pioneer trailblazer. What a knowledge that he has gone before us, that he has experienced hardship, that he has endured suffering, that he has been that good soldier, that excellent, commendable soldier.
And he is the captain of our army. What general is this who goes alone into the field and takes on all the enemy, arrayed in all their weaponry, and conquers them, gives his life blood to ransom the prisoners that they have taken?
What a general is this? We are to campaign vigorously. And this is our second type. Vigorously like an athlete. You see how we are to be purposeful like a soldier who wants to please his commander.
But we want to be vigorous like an athlete. And we want to be lawful like an athlete. There is a course laid before us. You remember Pilgrim in the Pilgrim's Progress. And if you are not familiar with it, here is this man. He enters through the gate.
He stands before the cross. He is sent on his way without his burden. And there is a hedge on either side of the path. And he must stay within that hedge because outside of that pathway lie many perils and many obstructions.
He had to go through the gate. He had to, as it were, go to the cross. That was the lawful entry into the race. There was one who jumped the hedge. He was like Pilgrim. He was from the outside. He was from the city of destruction in that sense. Ignorance jumped the fence. He didn't come through the gate. He didn't compete lawfully.
God ordained one way to enter the heavenly race. Ignorance took another. And at the very gates of heaven, he was cast into heaven. He got to compete lawfully. The flatterer came to Pilgrim. And he became entangled in his net. He listened to the voice of the flatterer. He was drawn away by the flatterer, pandering to his desires. And he was caught in the net. He was entangled.
Despair came upon him and took him captive and into Doubting Castle. But where did he return to when he found the key of promise in his breast? Return to the way. And what was there on the way? There was the house beautiful. There was the house of interpreter. There was the place of the shepherds, those delectable mountains where he could catch a vision of the celestial city. There was the quiet and pleasant harbour where he could rest.
There was the battlefield where he met Apollyon in the way. And it seemed like his life was about to be snatched from him. And he was delivered. And his cry was heard in heaven. And his sword thrust deep into his accuser and into the one who would bring him once more into the bondage of sin. And he fled with a grievous wound.
There was a way to contend. There was a way to be gone. And believer, that is the way. This is the how. The way is confined, if you like, within the boards of this book. Here is the way. This is a kingdom of words. I have to take issue with the hymn that we sing lately. It is a kingdom of power. But it's a kingdom of words. The words of Jesus Christ.
It's a kingdom of power and of words, you see. Now, I'm an imperfect hymn writer. And no doubt there are those who could take issue with my hymns. That isn't the point. What I'm saying to you is don't ever think that God's power is some nebulous unknown as it affects your life. It will affect your life through the word of God. That's the pathway. That's the race to be run.
I'm charitable of that hymn writer. I think that he's referring to those verses not in word but in deed. So it's not only words, it's power. But there is a sense in which he could misunderstand. And the churches are filled with those who misunderstand. They're seeking a powerful experience of God without running lawfully, without confining themselves to the immense breadth and depth and height of the love of God as it's revealed in the word, in the gospel, in the truth.
In the revelation of Jesus Christ. So there's an athletic way to run. And you've got to bring the word to bear. I'm speaking to myself here. But I'm speaking to family heads, to partners, to single people, to children, you little children.
If you believe, you younger children, if you believe, you've got to take the word of God to heart. You must do it. If you're ahead of a household and you're struggling, perhaps you're the only one there. You have no partner. You're struggling. You've got to find the answers here. They are here.
You've got to steep yourself in the word. Avail yourself of those in the church perhaps who have a gift to teach. Confide in your pastors. Go to the Bible study teachers who've brought a principle that's suddenly been applicable to your life and say, where did you find that? How did you learn that? How can I apply it?
Or go secretly to your Father in heaven better than all and say, Lord, I see this in your word. Help me to see its application. Help me to see its death. Raid the bookshelves of the church library. Raid the bookshelves of the brethren. Raid your own bookshelf.
Open up books. Steep yourself in the wisdom of Christ, what is revealed to men and women throughout the centuries, how they can run lawfully, how they can run graciously, how they can compete. The wonder of it is, in a normal race, only one crosses the line and is crowned.
In the race of God, everyone who was entered in is crowned with glory and honour because of Christ. So run that race. And thirdly, and I really spilled into my next point, be like the hardworking farmer. Timothy was tired.
He was disconsolate about Paul. He was weeping. He was alone at Ephesus. He felt walled in by these people that were opposing the Gospel. The church was playing up. And Timothy was in a frame where he was tired and vexed.
And that's why Paul says to him, the hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Timothy was working hard. Now, some of you here will be working hard for the kingdom of God. Your every thought will be to employ yourself in his work and in his ways and then suddenly you'll become tired and you'll drop.
I have had that experience. There is only one remedy. If you're ploughing the fields in hope, if you're scattering the seed, you must partake of the fruits of the Gospel. You must partake of the fruits of the Gospel.
That word hardworking means the one who labours to the point of exhaustion. It just simply means the tiller of ground. The tiller of ground who tills and tills and plants and waters. When God gives the increase, you must partake of it if you are to continue.
And that was what Paul was saying to Timothy. Now this is particularly relevant to those of us who labour in full-time employment, whether in the home or in society, and labour in the ministry of the church. Diaconal work, teaching work, pastoral work.
We can become so tired that we become disconsolate and so undernourished that we become impotent. We must bring them in if we're to continue. And we must ask ourselves. There can only be two reasons why we're not weary in well-doing.
It's either because we're not doing it, which is another thing, or because we are partaking. It's a difficult thing. Natural reason says that when you come home from your work or when the evening comes as a wife and a mother and you walk into your home and you put your children to bed and teach them from the word of God and you give out to them.
Reason says the best thing you can do then is go to sleep. But God says the best thing you can do is feed on the Gospel yourself before you take a rest. Rest in Him. It's a lesson that I'm struggling to learn. We must learn this lesson. Timothy needed to learn it.
Timothy was taught by the apostle himself. Timothy needed to learn. He had to partake of the fruits of the Gospel. He had to nourish himself with the same message that he was using under God's grace to nourish others. And with the same Gospel that he was bringing to bear on other people's hearts, he had to bring it to bear on his own.
So there's those three types, if you like. The soldier, the athlete, the farmer. Now, my brethren, the final exhortation in this short passage, and I haven't dealt with it exhaustively, but I may have exhausted you in it.
We must consider. We must take our minds and apply it to what we have read and what we have heard. We mustn't be forgetful hearers.
That word consider means to take it, to put it in your mind and to turn it round about, to think on it, to look at all its aspects and say, what are the implications of what I'm hearing for me? What are the implications for me of what I'm hearing?
You see, Paul doesn't say, well, the reason I've said this to you, Timothy, is because you're doing this and you're doing this, you're doing this and you're doing this. He leaves it there. He says, God, I pray that God will give you understanding.
And that's the utility. That's the perfection of the word of God. The application of these principles lies between you and your maker, your redeemer, your friend, as you meditate upon his word.
How do we bear light and salt in this world? How do we know the vigor, the purpose, the endurance, the replenishment that's required to serve Christ? We go aside. We consider his word. We consider him. We transact with our Father in heaven.
We set the grace of Christ ever before our gaze. And then we can turn purposefully to our employment. And every obstacle has an answer in the word of God. The Creator has created an answer in this revelation for every difficulty.
I was sitting up in the fourth floor of NIV looking out my window over at the tax office and there was a little blue butterfly 100 yards away. What a weak, insignificant little creature. We could crush it. A little child could crush it in their hands. So little strength. So fragile.
And before that little creature was a huge seven-storey immovable obstacle called the Australian Taxation Office. And as I watched in my amazement, this little creature fluttered all the way without a stop up that great immense height and over and beyond my gaze.
The Creator designed that tiny creature to soar to heights that as a human being I'm incapable of soaring to. And it went its way. The Creator who has taken you and caused you, if you are his child, to be born again of incorruptible seed.
If he has equipped you and panoplyed you in his armour, surely you will accomplish what he purposes. Surely he has set into motion the principles and the power for you to overcome every obstacle and the place of provision and restoration for the ever present prospect of failure and imperfection that will dog us in this life.
Brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. And may God bless you as you seek to do his will this week and as we seek to be worthy of our calling. Amen.