The Good Soldier - 2 Timothy 2:1-5 - Episode #007

Episode #007 The Good Soldier Outline - 

1. The Recruitment of the good soldier.

2. The Response from the good soldier.

3. The Resistance from the good soldier.

4. The Rewarding of the good soldier.

Transcript

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Good morning and welcome back to the Keep on the Firing Line Preaching podcast. This is your host, Max Tidwell. Today I'm thankful to be back on the podcast. I hope you are doing great today. If you've noticed, I have changed some artwork on the podcast. No, you are not listening to a random podcast this morning. This is still the Keep on the Firing Line Preaching podcast. I wanted to uh update a few of the artworks on the podcast page as well as the Facebook and YouTube pages and channels. And so I've done that over the last couple days and I have updated those, and so you'll see those. And uh I pray that you like them. I hope that you like them, I do too. And uh hopefully here shortly I'll have some more things coming out on that. But this morning I have a thought to go along with our theme of keep on the firing line. I have had this thought on my mind for a few weeks now, and it's a message I preached a while ago back at my ordination service about two years ago now. And uh the Lord put it on my heart again a few weeks ago to preach on the podcast, and I've kind of been wrestling with it. I don't like to preach messages twice, but the Lord put it on my heart again, and so I'm just gonna um I'm just gonna do what the Lord says this morning. And so we're gonna be in the book of 2 Timothy, chapter number two, the book of 2 Timothy, chapter number two, where we're gonna be in verse number one through verse number five, where the Bible says, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And so we must understand that this is Paul writing his letter to Timothy, his second letter to Timothy. And so when he says, Thou therefore, my son, this is Paul writing towards Timothy, 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. Here's our text verse this morning Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that wareth 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 he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we're certainly thankful to be alive this morning and to be awake. God, I'm thankful for your word. I'm thankful for the King James Bible, God. I'm thankful for what it means to me and in my heart, and God, what it's done in my life. Lord, I'm thankful for your word this morning. God, I pray as I preach your word, God, that it would penetrate the hearts of the listeners. God, if there's conviction that needs to take place, I pray that you'd convict hearts. If there's encouragement that needs to take place, I pray you'd encourage hearts. God, if there's somebody on here that might not be saved, Lord, this podcast is listened to in so many more countries than I ever dreamed of. And God, this morning, if there's somebody that's listening that might not be saved, God, I pray you'd make salvation real to them. God, I may I pray you'd make hell a real place in their life. God, that you'd draw them unto yourself with good Holy Ghost conviction. God, draw them unto yourself and save them before it's everlasting too late. God, we sure do love you. We'll be sure to give you all the praise, the honor, and the glory. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen. This morning, as we're thinking about this, keep in mind that this is Paul's last imprisonment in Rome. So he's coming towards the end of his life. I believe that Paul knew, I believe that he had enough discernment to understand that it was coming towards the end of his life, that he was not going to live forever, and that he was going to go. I don't know if he knew that he was going to be beheaded. I don't know if he knew how he was going to die, but I do certainly believe that he knew that he was going to be persecuted and that was how he was going to die. And so he knew that this time was coming to an end. And as he's writing this letter, you can almost tell that he can, he knows that his life is coming to an end. And as he's giving these last exhortations and last encouragements to Timothy, he says this, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This morning, just kind of by way of introduction, I want to talk about who a soldier is. And so this morning, if you're saved, you're a soldier. I think back to VBS growing up, we used to sing that song, I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir. I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir. I know you can't see me right now, but I'm sitting here doing the dances to go along with it, right? And we we love that song. And I'm sure lots of VBSs have sung that song over the years, and that's a very, very good, you know, VBS song. And so what that's talking about is if you're saved, I'm in the Lord's army. I am in the Lord's army, right? And so you are a soldier of Jesus Christ, but just like in the Marine Corps and the military and you know, the army and the navy and the air force, there's good soldiers and there's bad soldiers. And so this morning I want to preach on this thought just for a few minutes of the good soldier and how to be a good soldier for the Lord. We see that Paul, he is one of the best soldiers that we see in the Word of God. His testimony, his transformation from Saul to Paul, his missionary journeys, the preaching that he that he preached. I mean, all the different things that Paul did. We see God work in a miraculous way in this man's life. And as he's writing this to Timothy, he's encouraging Timothy, listen, Timothy, you're gonna go through some hard times, but endure it as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. And so this morning, I want to go over four attributes of the good soldier this morning, four attributes of the good soldier. And so, firstly, we see the recruitment of the good soldier, the recruitment of the good soldier. So we're going over four attributes this morning. Firstly, we see the recruitment. I think back to high school when I was in high school, I had what's called a military recruiter come by your school, army recruiter, navy, you know, whatever the case may be, whatever branch it was. And as those people came by, their job was to recruit you to be in the military, recruit you to their branch of the military. And so those people did a very good job of recruiting. What's our job as a good soldier of Jesus Christ? It's to recruit. We're supposed to reach out and we're supposed to go and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, share the good news that Christ died, he was buried, and then he rose again on the third day. We're supposed to go out and share that and recruit as many people as we possibly can. I see a day now where we have so many different religions. We see so many people that are agnostic, they just say, I don't believe in God, I believe in myself, and I'm gonna get myself to heaven. But we have the good news of Jesus Christ. For by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We have the good news. And this morning, oftentimes we keep our mouth shut and we do not go and share the gospel and be a good recruiter like a good soldier would be. There's also the representation of the good soldier. The recruiters, they represent well. I don't know if you've ever seen the recruiters and the military personnel. I like to watch those videos sometimes on YouTube or sometimes they pop them on Facebook, where it's the stolen valors, where guys will military men will walk up to somebody who is not actually a military personnel, and they've got their camo on and their boots on and their patches and stuff, and the military guys will walk up and they'll start pointing out every little thing that these guys are doing wrong. It's like, well, your boots are laced the wrong side, and that patch is a little too low, and that patch is a little too high, that patch is supposed to be on the other side, and your shirt's not tucked in properly, and your belt's too loose, and all these different things that these guys go through, and they represent their branches so well. We're supposed to do the exact same thing as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. As a recruiter, we have to represent him in every area. We see recruiters for Christ should represent him well in absolutely every area. That's in the way we walk, in the way we talk, and the way we dress, and the people we hang out with, and the things we watch and the things we listen to. Every single thing that we do this morning, we should represent Christ in a good way. Nowadays, we see people a lot of times in the way they dress, they don't represent Christ well. I'm not talking about wearing Walmart or Goodwill versus Nike or Adidas or Reebok. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying you have to wear name brand. Half of the clothes that I wear are not name brand. I'm not a name brand person. I never have been and I never will be. So this morning, I'm not saying that if you don't wear a Joseph A. Banks suit coat that you're not representing the Lord well, please don't, please don't think that that's what I'm saying this morning. What I'm saying is cover up your body. There should be a distinct difference between the way a Christian lady in your man dress than a worldly lady in a man dress. And the reason I say young man too is because a man can just dress just as immodest as a woman can. And so this morning we have to make sure that we are representing the Lord in the best way possible. If we want to be a effective recruiter, we must represent him in a good way. We must represent him in the way we talk and the way we act. Ephesians chapter number two four, sorry, verse number 29 through verse number 32. The Bible says, Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed into the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. The Bible says we are to let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouth. Yes, that means cursing. That absolutely means cursing. But also that means gossip. That means anger, that means hate, that means slander, that means backbiting. Anything that's not edifying the Holy Spirit of God that lives inside of us, we ought not to let come out of our mouth this morning. As a recruiter, we must be ye holy, for he is holy. 1 Peter 1.16 tells us that. Separated from the world in its ways, 2 Corinthians 6.17, like peculiar people, 1 Peter 2.9. We must be distinctly different from the world, completely separated and set apart. This morning I've done a study on what that word separated means, and it means a complete divide between the two. It's one object and another. This morning, there ought to be nothing in common between us and the world. There ought to be nothing in common between the church and the world. This morning, I go around and I see churches online and I see churches all across this world where churches are becoming more and more like nightclubs. Somebody listen this morning. I'm talking so some of our churches are becoming more like nightclubs than they are churches. We see our Christian people walking around and they look just like the world. You cannot tell them apart from anybody in this world this morning. Why does the world want to have that? Why would they've already got that? They can do they can do that and they're perfectly fine. Why would the world want what we have if they don't see any difference between us and them? This morning, in order to be a good soldier, our first attribute must be to be a good recruiter. Secondly, this morning, we see the response from the good soldier. What is your response? This morning, verse number three, the Bible says, Thou there and for endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. I've had many trials in my life. I've had many times when things have not gone the way that I thought they were supposed to go or the way that I wish they would have gone. And then in the end, I see that God had his hand in every aspect and every area of it. Every single time over and over, he's blessed, he's poured out his blessings upon me, and I'm so thankful for it. But this morning, what is our response when the bad times come? You know, as a soldier in the military, when something happens that they don't expect, they can't just shut down and say, Well, I'm checking out. I don't want to be a soldier no more. I'm out of here, I'm done. I ain't responding to this mess. I'm not doing this, I'm not playing this game like I'm out of here. No, they what's what they get told what I call put pick up your boots and let's roll. I mean, it's time to go. I mean, something's happened. We didn't really plan for this, but here we've got to respond, we've got to take action, and we've got to do something. So let's just go. This morning, what is your response whenever the trials come, whenever the hard times come, whenever the things happen that you didn't expect? Whenever you walk outside to go to work in the mornings and your car doesn't start, or you've got a flat tire, what is your response in that area? We've got to make sure we understand that not only is the Lord watching, but the world's watching. And when the world watches us and how we respond to a storm, that might make or break somebody coming to church with us on a Sunday morning. If we walk through Walmart with a sad face all the time and we're walking through and we're mad at the world just because of what's going on around us, that doesn't give us ample opportunity to recruit somebody. Because of the response of the good soldier, we can have recruiting. How do we respond when God asks us to surrender this morning? I know oftentimes you hear testimony of men get called to preach and the Lord calls them to preach and they wrestle it for so long and they wrestle it and they wrestle it and they wrestle it. And partially that's because we feel inadequate and we feel unworthy, and absolutely we are. But a lot sometimes it's just because they pull them don't want to do it. There's some people who just don't, and they're just like, I don't, I'm not doing that. I don't want to do that. You think I really want to preach for the rest of my life? No, I don't want to do that. Some people think that way. What about husbands and wives when they ask you to surrender your kids and raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? What about those times when the Lord is calling for something in your life and saying, hey, I need that, I need that, that's that's something I need out of your life. How do we respond? Our response should be to either run down to an altar if we're in a church service or kneel wherever we're at or bow our heads wherever we're at, or tell God, look up and tell God, God, you can have whatever it is. I am yours, I am your vessel. This morning, let's make sure when God asks us to surrender, we just say yes, sir, and we go like the good soldier would. When God asks us to surrender, what's our response? I can tell you the response of the good soldier is that of Isaiah chapter number six, verse number eight. Isaiah says, This also I heard the voice of the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And then Isaiah responded in this way, then said I, Here am I, send me. Men and women alike, we must respond with that same response. Lord, here am I, send me. Firstly, today we see the recruitment of the good soldier. Secondly, we see the response of the good soldier. But thirdly, we see the resistance from the good soldier. Look with me in verse number four. The Bible says, 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. First Peter 5.8 tells us this be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Friends, we must stay on guard for the devil always, knowing he can and will attack and tempt us at any moment. There's not one person on this planet who is exempt from the devil and his wicked ways. There's not one person who can say, I'm never going to get tempted again, I'm never going to give in to sin again. He tempts us, he tries to make us fall. And it is our job to completely resist him, to be sober and to be vigilant, to be on watch, to be on guard for the devil. We are supposed to watch out and be vigilant because our adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, he is walking about seeking whom he may devour. I think of a real roaring lion this morning. And I used to watch a show growing up. It was called Big Cat Country. It was on Animal Planet. I was one of those weird kids that woke up at about 4 a.m. I'd wake up about 4 a.m., 5 a.m. and it was before the cartoons came on, and it was still the like halfway adult shows and halfway kids' shows. And so they just had random animals running around on the TV. We watched, I watched a show growing up called Animal Planet, and it was you'd see all these different animals. It was set in Africa, and you'd see all these different animals walking around, and they'd record how the lions would chase the gazelles and how the lions would chase the water buffalo and try to get the hippos and the crocodiles and everything, and just how much of a predator these big lions are. And I remember watching these lions, and they'd get down in the grass and they'd crawl and they'd crawl and they'd crawl and they'd crawl, they'd stick their face out, and that gazelle has no clue that the lion's even there. And then as the gazelle, sometimes the gazelle would kind of catch on or catch wind of what was going on, and they'd start to look around and they'd start to, you know, wonder what was happening, and then they'd jump up and they'd take off. But sometimes that gazelle wasn't being vigilant, wasn't looking around, wasn't paying attention. It's just trying to enjoy some grass. And then all of a sudden, here comes that line, boom, pounce right on the neck of that gazelle. And the the thought of that this morning is the devil does the exact same to us. He's lurking in the shadows, he's walking around trying to figure out our weakest moment. I mean, he's following us around day to day. He's trying to get us to fall, he's trying to pull us away from God. He's trying to get us away from the will of God for our life. He does not want us to share the gospel. He does not want us to respond in the proper way. And he certainly does not want us to represent in the proper way. So this morning, understand that we must have some resistance against the devil. Put up some fight. I'll tell you this, I'll tell our teens this all the time. The devil is okay with you being in church three times a week. I mean, the devil is perfectly fine with you being in church three times a week. He'll let you be in church Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night. He'll even let you go to Bible study. He'll let you go to let you go to revival. He'll let you go to those things as long as you don't start living it outside of the church walls. But as soon as you start living it outside the church walls, then he wants to jump on you and try to make you stop, right? He's perfectly fine with you living it on Sunday mornings and even Sunday nights. Maybe you can't make it on Wednesday nights for work, whatever the case may be. He's perfectly fine with you living it on Sunday mornings. But if you're praising the Lord, the Bible says, out of the same mouth proceedeth blessings and cursings. These things ought not to be so. Maybe Sunday morning you're praising the Lord. Maybe Sunday morning you're singing the hymns. Maybe Sunday morning you're singing in the choir. But by Monday morning, you're letting blessing you're letting cursings come out of your mouth. Friend, these things ought not to be so. We ought to put up more fight than this, friend. We ought to resist the devil more this morning. The good soldier resists the devil. It starts with us making the Christian and a spirit-filled life a 24-7, 365-day a year life, not just a Sunday and Wednesday life. The devil and sin will always make you go farther than you wanted to go, make you pay more than you've got, and make you stay longer than you wanted to stay. Friend, I'll tell you this from firsthand experience. Sin is enjoyable for a season. But after that, brings forth discouragement, brings forth pain, brings forth regret, sorrow, mourning. Sin is enjoyable just for a season, pleasurable for a season. But after that, it brings destruction. So this morning, let's put in some fight. This morning, just give him some fight. Give the devil some fight. Listen, he wants an easy meal. I tell you this, lions, they don't really like to work for their meal. As soon as those gazelles in that show that I was talking about earlier, as soon as those gazelles would really take off, lions would chase them for a few seconds, but they they don't have a lot of energy. I mean, they're big animals. So I'm saying chase them for a minute, those gazelles are pretty quick. They'd outrun them, and the lions just kind of be like, all right, whatever, I'll get one next, I'll get one, you know, I'll get one this afternoon or whatever the case may be. The devil, he wants easy meals. He doesn't want to have to work. He wants to have to come in and tempt a few times and then you fall, and then he'll just come back the next day and do the same thing over and over. But as we begin to put up some resistance, the Bible says in James chapter number four, verse number seven, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You know, we must use the word of God to resist the devil so he will flee. The Bible talks about in Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, that we're supposed to use the sword of the spirit. That's the word of God. But this morning I'll tell you this: just like a military personnel, just like a hunter, we got hunters around here, you don't just walk by a gun or get handed a gun in the military and walk straight out and start fighting with it or start hunting with it. You got to take it to the shooting range, you've got to take it down, you know, to the hillside, and you've got to get some decoys out, and you got to get some targets out, and you got to cite that scope in, and you got to get the feel for the gun, figure out how to, you know, cock it and unload it and reload it and get the clip in and all these different things. You've got to sign in your gun, you got to zoom in, you got to figure out how this gun works. I mean, you just gotta figure it out. You don't know, you've never shot it before. That's exactly what we have to do with the word of God. This morning, in order to use the sword, you must know the sword. Same way with a military personnel or a hunter, they've got to know their gun in order to use their gun. This morning, you have to know the word of God in order to use the word of God against the devil. You're not gonna be able to pull out scripture and say scripture. You know, the Bible says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, and that's that's good and bad. And so when we fill our heart with good, godly things like the word of God, and we fill our heart with preaching, and we fill our heart with verses of scripture, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth is gonna speak. And so we're able to put out verses of scripture to resist the devil and make him flee. The Bible says, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. When we resist the devil, he flees, but it takes him a little bit longer to come back. This morning, make sure you know the sword in order to use the sword. 2 Timothy 2.6, 2.15. Sorry. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. This morning, make sure you're in your Bible, make sure you understand the sword, make sure you can use the sword, because the devil's gonna come by your way. He's gonna tempt, he's gonna try, he's gonna try to make you fail, he's gonna try to make you fall, so that you can live in doubt, so that you can live in shame, and forget about the Redeemer, and forget about the man who forgave you of your sins, so that you could walk on and be free, and so that you could live for him and be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This morning, firstly, we saw the recruitment of the good soldier, secondly, the response from the good soldier, thirdly, the resistance from the good soldier, but lastly, I see the rewarding of the good soldier. Look at me in verse number five. And if a man also strive for mastery, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully. We look at military personnel and we look at people in military who have gotten great rewards. I've got family members who have rewards in the military. You get purple badges or badges of honor or certain different things for certain missions, or I don't know what the verbiage would be there, but obviously not in the military if you couldn't tell and never have been. And so I'm going based off what I know. But this morning, when we're talking about these ranks and rewards, I mean there's corporal, there's cadet, there's sergeants, I mean, there's all these different ranks and rewards that we see. And that's in the the the real world military, but I'm talking about God's military and God's army. This morning we see in 1 Corinthians chapter number 9, verse 24 through 25, the Bible says, Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize. So run that ye may obtain. Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. No, they do it, now they do it, to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. And what Paul is talking about here in this letter to the church at Corinth is he's talking about how when we run the race and when we are faithful to God, we are rewarded for that. We see many different crowns throughout the word of God. We see five in scripture, we see the incorruptible crown, and I'll just give you references here so you can go back and study those out later if you'd like 1 Corinthians 9, 24 and 25. We see the crown of rejoicing in 1 Thessalonians 2.19. We see the crown of life in James 1.12. We see the crown of glory in 1 Peter 5.4, and we see the crown of righteousness in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 8. I don't know about you, but that day when we receive our crowns, I hope I have every crown. I want to live my life as best as I possibly can so that I can have every crown. You know why? Because when we get our crowns that day at the judgment seat of Christ, and Christ crowns us and gives us these crowns, we're gonna take those crowns off and we're gonna begin to cast them at our Savior's feet. No, we're not gonna repay him for what he did on Calvary. Nothing could ever repay him for what he did on Calvary. But for us, it's exactly what we can do and what we should do is to live for him to the best of our ability. Live for him to the best of our ability so that we can get every crown that we possibly can and so that we can cast him at his feet. I don't know about you, I may not be rich here. I don't have any gold crowns here. This morning I've rich and I'm rich in heaven. I've got a I've got a mansion with my name written on it this morning. I pray that I have crowns laid up for me in glory, that Christ is going to give me one day. And I'm thankful this morning that we are rewarded for the soldiers that diligently seek him. This morning, I as we've gone through this and we've looked at attributes of a good soldier. I wonder this morning, are you would you say that you're a good soldier? Would you say that you're doing everything that you can for the Lord? This morning, I'd say um that I could definitely do better. I'd say that there's things in my areas of my life where I could definitely do better. And I hope this morning that you'd be honest with yourself and say the same. If you said, well, no, I I'm doing the best I can. I finally made it, I've arrived. Well, friend, you're lying to yourself. We hadn't arrived until we get to glory. We hadn't arrived until we get our new, our new bodies, our incorruptible bodies. Until then, these bodies are sinful bodies. It's time we turn our lives over and we start to surrender to the Lord and we become a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Why? Because He paid the price for us and He paid our part. Next week we'll be covering what's the point of hell. And I'm thankful for next week. I'm thankful for the study that I've been able to do. What is the reasoning for hell? Why is hell there? What's the purpose behind hell? Who's it made for? What's it for? What's it like? All the different things we're gonna go through that next week. But until then, Have a good week.