Sermon Transcript
Take out our Bibles together. We’re on 2 Timothy chapter 4. We’ve been doing an ongoing study there, and today we finally get to the last chapter of this very short book, 2 Timothy. As I was looking at this passage, I was reminded that after we moved here to the Bay Area, one of the first guys I met was John Chapin. John, along with his wife Marsha, were great people that were part of this member— this church for a long time, longtime members.
Now they live in the D.C. area. John’s just a great guy, an exuberant Christ follower, a person who loves God, loves people. If you know John, you also know that he loves to play golf. And John found out that I love to attempt to play golf, so he invited me to go out and play with him sometime. He said, Dave, anytime you want to go play golf, give me a call.
I’m always ready to go. Just give me 5 minutes. I thought, that’s interesting. That means John is an all-weather kind of golfer. It doesn’t matter what the conditions are, anytime, anyplace, he was ready to go.
What John didn’t know about me is that I’m not an all-weather golfer. I’m a fair-weather golfer, which means if it’s the right conditions, you know, the right weather— if it’s too hot, I’m not going. If it’s too cold, forget it. If it’s rainy or windy, nope, you got the wrong guy. Maybe next time.
You know, when things are perfect, that’s when I want to go. Well, what got me thinking about this is 2 Timothy chapter 4, because this passage is focused on the problem of fair-weather speaking, fair-weather speaking. When I started to work on this passage a couple of weeks ago, it was 92 degrees outside at the time I was working on it, and it was on its way to 100 degrees that day in the Mountain View area here. It was 90 degrees actually in San Francisco. So, you may remember this a couple of weeks ago.
So, weather was the talk of the town. Everywhere you went, people were talking about, you know, how hot it was outside and The forecast was not only bad for that day, but the forecast was the same for the second day. It was going to be 90-plus degrees, you know, like 2 days in a row. And so people around here were just freaking out about it. They didn’t want to go anywhere.
They didn’t even want to go to the beach because the beach was too hot. So people were talking about secluding themselves in their homes because we here in California are what you might call fair-weather wimps. So people were looking at, you know, all the air-conditioned places that they could go to if they didn’t have an air-conditioned home. They were doing what we teach our children to do in dangerous situations, which would be run, duck, hide, and cover, and try not to be seen. We go stealth into seclusion behind pulled drapes and blinds.
Well, that kind of thing isn’t just something that, you know, might come out on sweltering days in the Bay Area. It’s something that many of us do from time to time, maybe all the time, when it comes to telling other people about God and his desire to have a growing relationship with us through Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to think about that. We have the privilege of, you know, helping people come to understand that there is a God who loves us, he wants a relationship with us, and he wants the relationship to begin now, and that he is, you know, working to build a relationship with us. The matter is, we oftentimes don’t want a relationship with him.
And we have the privilege of telling people how God loves them and wants to not only start a relationship but grow a relationship with them, and often we don’t do that. So you might say we’re fair-weather witnesses. And that’s not just a problem, you know, for people like us. I have that problem. It’s also a problem for pastors, pastors like Timothy.
This guy we’re going to read about again this morning, 2 Timothy chapter 4, where evidently he was having some fair-weather witnessing issues that the Apostle Paul has to bring to his attention. And I really think that’s sad that we actually ourselves need that to be brought to our attention because we have what the world needs. You ever think about that? We have what the world needs and If we don’t get it to them, it’s going to be detrimental to them not to hear that message, and it would be detrimental to us not to pass that message along. And so as we look at this passage this morning, I think there’s a lot of application.
You know, I really do, for all of us here today, because we can tend to go stealth, quiet, you know, basically not reveal our faith. To people who so desperately need Jesus Christ. And so Paul, writing to Timothy, who is a pastor in Ephesus, writes these words. 2 Timothy 4:1-2, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge. 3 words.
Preach the Word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Out of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. You know, this charge— and I love that word charge that’s found in verse 1— this charge to Timothy, which was given 2,000 years ago, is as relevant now as it was then.
Timothy evidently had all the incentive he needed to be an all-season spokesperson for Jesus Christ, just like we have all the incentive we need to be a spokesperson for Jesus Christ if you have faith in Christ. You know, the one that he brings immediately into focus is this incentive: judgment is coming. There’s a day coming when God is going to make everything right. And when that day comes, it could be a day of, listen, great disaster or great delight. Whether it’s great disaster or great delight will depend upon our relationship to God through his Son, Jesus Christ.
And so right here at the outset of incentive to help, you know, Timothy not go quiet on his faith, he brings into this matter this judgment that’s coming. And as we look at the Scriptures, there are really 3 primary judgments that are coming. There’s the day when the Lord is going to separate the sheep from the goats, all right? He’s going to separate the sheep from the goats. That is a judgment day where believers and unbelievers will be separated.
And secondly, there is a day when Jesus the Judge is going to judge unbelievers at the Great White Throne, and the result of this judgment will be separation from God forever. And then there’s a day when Christ followers will be judged at another location called the Bema Seat, and there God is going to reward his children for their loving service to God. Now, you can think about a lot of different judgments that could come into life, such as, you know, sometimes we call them tests, you know, tests that teachers give out in classes and the judgment that comes with that, or a performance review, or inspections, or penalties for wrong or criminal behavior. Even bonuses oftentimes come as a form of judgment. But of all the judgments, of all the judgments that The one that really matters the most isn’t the one that a boss is going to give us or a spouse or a teacher or a parent or a board member or a local church or any other human institution.
The one that matters the most is this day of judgment that is coming when the Lord is going to come. Notice verse 1, and He’s going to judge the living and the dead, which is to say those who are still alive at the time of His coming and those who died before His coming. And this is all going to come, this judgment’s going to come after His appearing, as you can see there in verse 1, and before His sinless kingdom. So, there’s a kingdom coming that He’s going to ultimately set up, but not everybody’s getting into this kingdom. Judgment’s going to take care of that in terms of where they should properly go.
And that coming reality Paul is using as a charge to Timothy, and he’s simply giving him this charge: get God’s Word out. That’s the charge, simply stated. Get God’s Word out. 3 words: preach the Word, herald the Scriptures boldly, courageously, constantly, willingly, gently, lovingly, enthusiastically, publicly proclaim the truth wherever you go, wherever you are. Don’t wait for a fair-weather day.
Just proclaim the truth through your life, through your lips. Don’t hide God’s Word from others. Don’t hold back on the bread of life. Eagerly, willingly, constantly, whenever you have the opportunity, teach God’s Word. Big question: Is that me?
Is that you? Can you remember the last time that you proclaimed truth, God’s truth, you taught God’s truth to somebody who needed to hear it, especially somebody that is outside of God’s family? Would you say that you are somebody who is ready to preach the truth, to teach the truth, to get the word out in season? Notice that. In season and out of season.
Now, what’s he suggesting with in season and out of season? Well, he’s suggesting different conditions for getting God’s word out. There are the conditions that are really favorable, and then there are the unfavorable conditions. There are the conditions where things seem easy to be talking about God, and then the hard situations. And then there’s the good times and the bad times, and there are the times where people, like, seem— they’re, like, leaning forward and they’re open, and then there are the other times where people are closed, and it just seems like they are gonna push back and ridicule and shame you if you talk at all about God and Jesus Christ.
And so the potential for us is just to pull the curtains closed and go stealth, go silent, to just shut ourselves up. You know why we should be eager to get God’s Word out in any and every condition? The answer is given to us right here in verse 2. It’s because it’s needed in any and every condition. It’s needed for correction.
I mean, look around the world today. You think there’s anything out there that needs to be corrected? Are you kidding? It’s like everywhere you look, correction is needed. We need somebody to come along and help us understand that there’s a better life, and this better life is connected to God and is connected to loving God and loving other people.
Do we need rebuking in our culture? We are a long ways from God’s best in our lives. And yeah, we need to have people come along and rebuke us for our sins to help us understand that we’ve turned away from God. We need to turn back to God. We need to repent.
We need to turn away from what’s bad and turn to what’s good. Do we need encouragement? How about that? Do we need constant encouragement? You better believe it.
We can’t get enough encouragement to stay the course, to stay strong, to begin a new course of action, to walk in faith. We need encouragement all the time. But for those to come our way, there are going to be teachers that are needed. And these teachers— notice these qualities— these teachers are going to need to have great patience because truth will not be communicated, you know, like on one occasion and that’s it, and the person will say, I got it, no problem. No.
This is something that’s not going to happen overnight. There will be constant failure and resistance that needs to be overcome. And so, if you’re teaching God’s Word to people who perhaps aren’t interested right now and the conditions aren’t favorable, you’re going to need to have great patience. And the tendency would be just to give up, not be patient with them. And careful instruction is needed.
People are going to have to have an understanding of the whats and the whys and the hows of Scripture because it’s going to take time. To really process the Scriptures and get into it in such a way that you truly believe it? You know, I love it when the conditions are favorable, don’t you? Like when you’re having a conversation with somebody and they’re just like, yeah, give me more, give me more, you know, just dump it on me. I just— kind of like, you know, a lot of you students, I’m sure, just got back from Hume Lake, and the culture there is fantastic where you’re sitting there and students are sitting forward and they’re like, yeah, and they’re writing down notes and all the rest of that stuff, and it’s a great time, and you’re just, yes, I love being Being a part of things like that where people are eager to learn, kind of like Acts 17 where the Bereans were known for their eagerness to learn the Word of God, and then they would inspect it and they would study it to see if what they were hearing was true so that then they might end up doing it.
And I love it when, you know, you read about in Acts chapter 20 how the church even at times used to get together and they’d go all night long. Can you believe this? They sat all night long. Listening to the teaching of God’s Word, even to the point— there’s talks about this one meeting they were at where Eutychus, this Eutychus guy, was there in the meeting, and it says that Paul’s preaching was too long. That’s what it says.
His preaching was too long. And so Eutychus, he couldn’t stay awake any longer, so he fell asleep. But the problem was he was in the window on the 3rd floor, and he fell out of the window, and he died while he’s listening to the Word of God. I mean, it was a great moment till that moment. But so what did Paul do?
He stopped his message, went down there, and he brought the guy back to life. You gotta love that one, right? Now, I just want to say a little disclaimer here. I can’t do that for you, okay? So if you fall asleep and you fall out of the pew and you die, I’m sorry.
I’m really sorry. It’s not gonna like— I’ll pray for you, but I don’t guarantee that you’ll come back to life. I love it when people are eager to learn the Word of God, you know, and they even go to camps and other places like that where they’re getting physically refreshed and spiritually refreshed at the same time, and it all comes together. Yes, I love this. But there are also those unfavorable conditions where people are opposing the Word of God and they ridicule the Word of God and they push back on it and they resist.
And they’re even sometimes they’re just indifferent. They’re indifferent to the Word of God. And evidently that’s what Timothy was faced with in Ephesus, with people that just weren’t interested, verse 2, in careful instruction. They weren’t interested in careful instruction. And get this, underline, from God’s Word.
Which is why Paul had to write to Timothy, and he said this, verse 3. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. They won’t put up with sound instruction, careful instruction, biblical instruction. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Does that sound a little bit relevant? Like today, that there are some people in and even outside the church that are more interested in superficial teaching rather than sound doctrine? That they’re more interested in satisfying their own personal desires and itching ears by hearing fictional myths and stories rather than consuming the words of life found in the Scriptures? They don’t want to be accountable to doctrinal beliefs and moral standards that are clearly taught in the Word of God. That’s outmoded to them and irrelevant to them.
All they want is entertainment, an emotional experience. They want somebody who will tickle them with a talk that legitimizes their thinking, their lifestyle, their sins, their wants, and their desires. They want a religion of their own doing, so they seek out pastors or leaders who are into the same things, leaders who spin the truth to fit what they want to say instead of what actually God says. You say, really? That happens?
Oh, yeah. That’s, like, happening all around us, closer than you think. If you’re looking for talks that tickle or satisfy your particular itch, you won’t have to look long. You’ll be able to find it somewhere in the Bay Area. In fact, anywhere you go, you can pretty much find these kinds of talks.
See, Timothy actually, even at that point in time, was beginning to experience those kinds of unfavorable conditions in the church at Ephesus. And we still experience them now. We might even call them deplorable conditions that hurt people, and they pull people away from the truth, from the Bible and what the Bible teaches, and Bible-teaching churches that are trying to do their best to teach sound doctrine in a day when sound doctrine is not vogue.
And the sad thing is church after church, instead of continuing to faithfully teach God’s Word, goes stealth. They turn away from the truth. They turn away from the parts of Scripture that aren’t popular. We’re not going to talk about those. They go quiet on God’s Word, and instead of teaching the truth of God’s Word, they substitute man’s word for God’s Word.
They teach what makes sense in, listen, our enlightened age instead of teaching and believing God’s Word as it is. This has been going on since the beginning of the church. When I was in seminary, which wasn’t at the beginning of the church, but anyway, when I was in seminary, one of the professors of the class I was in that had to do with teaching and hermeneutics, the study of the Bible and all that, this professor gave us a cassette tape of a well-known pastor’s Sunday morning message. And our assignment was to take this cassette tape and to listen to it and answer the question, is this guy teaching God’s Word? Do you remember cassette tapes?
Anyway, so we were supposed to listen to this cassette tape and figure out what was this guy teaching. Was he preaching God’s Word? And we did that, and then we came back, we had a discussion. It was a fascinating discussion, and we, you know, talked it through, and we wrote some papers on this. I remember this.
It happened like 40 years ago. This assignment was 40 years ago, and I can still remember the lasting lesson that came out of listening to this tape and the discussion, the paper, and all that stuff. I still remember coming to the conclusion with the class, this pastor valued his word more than God’s Word. That was obvious because he never opened the Bible or directed us or helped us understand any Bible passages. He did not teach from God’s Word.
He did not do the one thing that Paul was telling Timothy to do. What’s that? 3 words: preach The Word. Get the Word out. This guy, his talk was great.
It tickled people’s ears. It was a fun talk to listen to, but it would not satisfy the deepest longings of our souls because only God’s Word can ultimately satisfy the longings of our souls. And so here’s Timothy. He’s in a church now and he’s experiencing pressure in this church from people who want it a different way, maybe criticism, complaints. Maybe negative letters are coming his way, and Paul then has to write and try to get his head on straight.
So he says in verse 5, but you keep your head. In all situations endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Discharge all the duties of your ministry. Paul is saying to Timothy, Timothy, don’t you dare, don’t you dare turn away from preaching the Word of God.
Keep your head on straight. Don’t give in to the emotional whims and pleas of people who want less of this instead of— they should be wanting more. Be sober and smart and unwavering and steadfast. Give the people what they need, God’s Word. Don’t give people what they think they need, man’s words.
Give them what they need, God’s Word. Now, for him to do that, verse 5, he’s going to have to endure hardship. And by the way, It’s going to be the same for us, isn’t it? If you are a faithful person in getting God’s word out, it’s going to involve some hardship. Some people are going to want nothing to do with you.
They may push back pretty hard. But Paul wants to see Timothy continue down this road, get God’s word out no matter what. In fact, he says in verse 5, you need to do the work of an evangelist. You know why Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist? What’s the work of an evangelist?
It’s spreading the good news. It’s telling others that God loves us.
He made it possible for us to have a relationship with Him now and forever. It’s that news, the good news of the gospel. Timothy was to spread that good news, to intentionally tell others the good news, but he was evidently witnessing-challenged. Anybody here witnessing challenged? I think most of us would raise our hand on that one.
You see, Timothy, as far as we can tell, he didn’t have the evangelist gift. And some people think, well, if I don’t have the evangelist gift, that means I’m off the hook on this one, right? No, no, no. Timothy wasn’t off the hook any more than we’re off the hook. Even though it wasn’t in his gift mix, that didn’t matter.
He needed to get out there and do what Jesus called His followers to do, which is to get the Word out. You know what we call that? Making disciples. That’s what that’s called. It’s built around going and baptizing and teaching.
Jesus talked about it in Matthew 28:19-20. He’s giving a charge to His followers. He’s saying, you got to go and you got to preach the gospel. And when they come to faith in Jesus Christ, then they need to be baptized. They need to go public with their faith.
And then you need to teach them to do all that I’ve commanded you. So, it was all about kind of 2 parts of the Great Commission. There’s the front half and there’s the back half. The first part is helping people come to faith in Christ, and the back half is all about helping people become more and more like Jesus Christ. And why would we bother to do that?
Why would Timothy bother to do that? Because there are people all around us who need to hear the good news, people that God wants in His family, people that are still invited into God’s kingdom. And He wants us to care about them as much as He cares about them. And we ask the question, do I really care? I mean, do I really care enough that I would take seriously the charge to get God’s Word out in season and out of season?
I would tell them about the living water. I would tell them about the bread of life that awaits them in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We as a family spent some time up in Montana recently for some vacation time. There were 25 of us up there, kind of the extended family. And we did a lot of special things there together, but one of the things we did was we ate We had food.
Yes, we had food on vacation. In fact, I saw somebody else going on a day of— out as a family, and they had tons of food. They took pictures of all the food. They were so proud of all the food they were taking with them. But anyway, so we had a bunch of food up there, and I am so glad that I am married to a wife who knows that he likes to eat.
And so Bernice would tell me when the food was ready. I typically wasn’t in the food prep area, so she would have to pass the message along to me, hey, Dave, dinner’s ready. Come on over for dinner. And I would come on over for dinner. Well, you know what?
Because I came over for dinner and I enjoyed those meals, it made for a great vacation for me too. It really did, because I like to eat. Well, people, listen, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is bread. It’s bread that people need. But they need to be told, here it is, here it is, come and get it.
It’s found in Jesus Christ. And Paul is just focused on, for Timothy and in his life, getting God’s Word out, this bread, and he longs for Timothy to do the same. In fact, this matter was of such importance to Paul at this point in his life that he says then this, verse 6, for I am already, Timothy, I am already being poured out like a drink offering. This is another way of saying, I’m not going to be living much longer, and if this word is going to continue to get out, it’s going to have to continue to get out through people like you. I’m already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.
I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I’ve kept the faith. It’s pretty obvious that Paul knows the countdown clock is moving toward zero, that his time on earth was running out and that his departure day is coming. And so he’s saying to Timothy, he’s saying to Timothy, get God’s word out while you still can because there’s a day coming where you’re not going to be any longer located here on earth.
There’s a departure day. And I love this D-Day that he talks about. One of the incentives for getting God’s Word out is D-Day. And what’s D-Day? It’s departure day.
You notice that in verse 6. I’m already being poured out like a drink offering. The time for my departure has come. Paul’s time on earth, he knows it. It’s almost over.
It’s kind of like, you know, we use the word departure when we’re talking about the departure time of an airplane. If you don’t hurry up and get over here, you hear the speaker system of them trying to get that last passenger. If you don’t get over here in 5 minutes or whatever it is, We’re gone. Well, there was a departure day when Paul’s life on earth was going to be done. He recognized that.
I love that picture because it’s a picture of departing from one place to go someplace else. And Paul knew that he was going to depart earth and he was going to go to heaven, and there in heaven he was going to enjoy the presence, the presence of the Lord. And so he was living in light of the day that was coming. He even knew He was being poured out as a drink offering, which is fascinating language. It connects with the sacrificial system where God’s children, as an act of worship, would come before the Lord with some offerings.
One of those offerings was a burnt offering. This was an offering that they came to Him for sin, for atonement for sin, for confession of sin. Then there was the grain offering where they acknowledged that God was the one that gave them grain, that God provided for them. He gave them what we call in the New Testament a daily bread, their daily bread. But then there was this drink offering, and the drink offering was a way for a person to present themselves to God as a living sacrifice and say, I want to be a spiritual act of worship.
This is Paul’s thought in Romans chapter 12, where 24/7 he was a walking worship service. And so Paul realizes that his life is an offering, But this liquid, this drink offering, it’s almost all poured out. There’s very little liquid left. His life is almost over. He’s been ministering now for about 30 years.
And he’s around, get this, he’s about 60 years old, and he’s saying, Timothy, I have fought, verse 7, I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I’ve kept the faith. You think he wants Timothy to grasp that and follow in the same way? Absolutely.
In fact, in 2 Timothy chapter 2, we read through that, we studied that, where verses 3 to 6, Paul told Timothy, endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. If anyone competes as an athlete, He does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. What’s he saying? He’s saying to Timothy right now as he’s being poured out and he knows his time is limited, he’s saying to Timothy, Timothy, I did that.
That’s what I sought to do in my life. It was a battle. It was a war. It was a fight, but I fought as a soldier against the rulers of powers and against the world forces of darkness and against the spiritual forces of wickedness. In the heavenly places, but that was a good war.
It was a good fight. It was a worthy fight because it’s for eternal impact. And it was a race, Timothy. It was a race that I could have just given up on like you could give up on it. Like we could give up on it.
It was a grueling race. It was a grueling course, but I finished the course like an athlete. And Paul longed to complete that task, that track, And he did. He finished the race. I don’t know if you saw Micah Herndon finish the Boston Marathon back in April, but he crossed the finish line on his knees.
He was running along fine, but then he had severe cramps in the last part of the race that rendered his legs almost useless. So this 31-year-old Marine told the Washington Post, The reason he finished was because he was committed to finishing the race to honor the lives of the 3 men that he served with in Afghanistan who were killed after their convoy was hit by an explosive device in 2010. Why did you finish? To honor my friends. Paul is saying here, I finished this race.
Cost was worth it. It’s for Jesus Christ. If I have to endure pain to finish the race, I’ll do it. And it was a treasure, it was a treasure of faith that he guarded and protected, and he kept the faith. The gospel of faith had immense value to Paul.
He held onto it tightly. He wasn’t about to let it go, even if it involved hardship. Like a good farmer, he was not going to abandon the crops.
He was not going to abandon the faith. He held onto it tightly. Think engagement ring. Have you ever seen a bride-to-be show off her engagement ring? Is she proud of the ring?
You better believe she’s proud of the ring. I’m not letting go of this. It’s of immense value to her. Well, this treasure of faith should be of immense value to all of us. And Paul held on in light of the fact that departure day was coming.
I’m going to have only so long to fight. To fight this good fight. I’m only going to have so long to finish this race. I’m only going to have so long to keep the faith. And he’s calling Timothy to the same thing.
So essentially, he’s calling Timothy to live in light of 2 days, to live in light of D-Day, departure day, but also to live in light of J-Day. And what’s that? That’s Judgment Day, the day that he began, but then he finishes with these words in this little section. Verse 8, now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to who have longed for His appearing. Now he’s back to talking about that bema seat, that day that Christ’s going to— as the righteous Judge, He’s going to award His children, all those who have longed for His appearing.
All those who are in his family, all those who are looking to Jesus Christ for salvation, all those that are looking to Jesus Christ for grace, you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to do something even greater than he’s already done. What’s he already done for his children? He’s declared them righteous. He’s bestowed on them grace.
He’s declared them righteous. Well, on this day, We’re going to be given complete righteousness. It’s going to be perfected in us. God is going to perfect righteousness in His children. He’s going to give us a crown of righteousness, the very righteousness of our Redeemer.
And who gets that? Every believer will be crowned with this perfection, with this righteousness. And knowing that Jesus is going to crown me with righteousness, Paul is saying, is enough to get God’s Word out while I still can, in season and out of season, in favorable and in unfavorable conditions.
You know, I used to focus on just the growth part of the Christian life. That was just so important to me, and it should be important. The Bible talks about obeying God’s Word, not just parts of it, but obeying it. But for me, I kind of didn’t give much thought to this other side, to the evangelist side. So, I guess you could say there was more of a focus on the edification side of preaching the Word of God than there was, verse 5, of doing the work of an evangelist.
Several years ago, I repented from my lack of focus on doing the work of an evangelist. I came to realize that as much as God wanted Timothy to do the work of an evangelist and Paul to do the work of an evangelist, He wants all of His children to do that work, that that’s not just something for professionals, that He wants all of us as His witnesses to be His witnesses in Jerusalem. That’s the city that we’re living in. And Judea, that’s the state that we live in, or province they called it at that time. So it’d be like all of California.
And Samaria, which would be the province to the north, that’d be like Oregon. And all the world. He wants us to be witnesses in all the world, in season and out of season. He wants us to get the word out. Now that can either be a burden or it can be a blessing.
How do you view it? Do you view that as a burden or a blessing? Yesterday, part of our family went to Shasta Lake, and you know what they did as soon as they got there? They rented a— they had already set up a rental on a houseboat, so they’re going to spend the whole day on this houseboat having fun. And they got going on having fun.
You know what they did immediately after they started having fun? They sent photos out. Yeah, have you ever seen anybody do that before? They, like, take a trip and then they start sending photos to you so that you can share in the experience with them. And we love doing that.
They wanted everybody to know about the good news. They wanted everybody to know about the fun they were having. Was it a burden for them to get the word out? Absolutely not. It was a blessing.
This shouldn’t be any different than that. In fact, in many ways, it should be A greater blessing. We’ve got the gospel of Jesus Christ that transforms people’s lives now and forever. Is it not a blessing to get that out? If it’s not, then hey, we got to sit down with the Lord, do some thinking about this.
What is it that keeps me back from getting the word out for as long as I can? If you’re looking for the right season, Now’s the right season. That’s what he’s saying. You get that? Summer.
We’re in summer. So as you think about summer, I don’t know what your plans are, but make sure that you make a part of your plan asking God to use you as an evangelist, if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, as a witness of Jesus Christ to get the word out. To get the word out, to get the scriptures out to people who so desperately need to hear it. By the way, if you’re here today and you’ve never come to faith in Jesus Christ, maybe the reason you’re here today is because God just longs to see you come into his family. He put you here today to hear this message so that you ultimately Take the step of faith to receive Christ as your Savior.
That’s the most important decision that you can make if you’re not spiritually connected yet to God through Jesus Christ. Let’s pray. Father, thanks for this time to talk about these matters, and we just are so grateful for the potential impact in all of our lives. We pray that we as people who’ve been blessed with the gospel will with enthusiasm share it with others in season and out of season, that lives might be changed, people might come into relationship with you. And if there is anybody here today that today is going to be the day of salvation, may they just in their own words just express that to you.
Lord, save me. Just tell God that. Save me from my sins. Make me one of your children. Help me become the kind of person you want me to be.
I receive Jesus as my Savior. I confess, confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord. I believe in my heart that you raised him from the dead. The Bible says you’ll be saved. Thank you, God, for that promise.
We love you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
