Don't Waste Your Energy

Here is the sermon revised for grammar, spelling, and punctuation, kept in full paragraph format:

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Well, turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2. We are going to be considering verses 14-19. And I just want to get right into reading these verses. So 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 14-19. "Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: the Lord knows those who are his. And let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."

So Paul, continuing his instruction to Timothy, is imparting to him words and wisdom that he would have him carry after Paul — who is presuming himself to be executed soon. One of the things that he is pouring into him about leading the church, as he focuses in here, does focus on the word of God and what we do with it — both as people like myself, as pastors, as church leaders, and even as members of the congregation. How do we regard it, and what do we do with it? What Paul would have Timothy understand and do is to make sure that he does not waste his energy on the irreverent and the irrelevant, and instead focuses himself on making sure he understands the Scriptures correctly. Focus on what the word of God says. Make sure you understand it. Make sure it is clear to you. Make sure you can explain it, teach it, and preach it, Timothy.

And so in this section, Paul gives Timothy instructions, gives him insight, and gives him directions about what he is supposed to do. First and foremost — and this may seem counterintuitive — he wants him to instruct the instructors. We all know that when it comes to learning something, mastering information, mastering content, mastering a skill, rarely is it a one-and-done situation where you just look at it and say, "Yep, I got it. No problem. I'm good." That doesn't really happen. Repetition, review, reminding — these are keys to firmly grasping material. Just ask anyone who is in college or anyone who has had to do any continuing education for their career. Part of that is not just learning new information, but reminding themselves of things they have already learned, continuing to keep it fresh. It is no different in the Christian life. Believers, including those who are tasked with teaching and instructing within the congregation, need to be reminded of certain truths.

So that is what Paul says right here: "Remind them of these things." So who is "them," and what are "these things?" What is Paul wanting Timothy to remind these people of? Well, the "them" is in general the church in Ephesus, but more specifically the faithful men who are mentioned in verse two of chapter 2, where he says, "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, instruct to faithful men." So Paul is still directing Timothy in what he is supposed to do with these faithful men. And one of the things he is supposed to do is remind them of these things. Well, what things? Those things are what Timothy had learned from Paul. And in this particular context, it is what we find in verses 8 through 13, where you will notice the beginning of verse 8 starts with the word "remember." There is a great little bookend here: "Remember" — "remind." The things Timothy is supposed to remember, he must not forget to remind the individuals he is raising up to be faithful instructors in the church. Just as he needs to remember these things, they are going to need to remember them as well. So he is going to need to remind them. In other words: instruct the instructors. Make sure they know what they are supposed to be relaying and communicating to the people within the church.

And so what is significant — what is worth Timothy remembering and these instructors being reminded of — is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his messianic identity. That is what comes out in verse eight: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel." You have to remember, first, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. His body is not in the grave anymore. In fact, his body is not even here on earth. It has risen and ascended into heaven. And remember that he is the promised Messiah, the offspring of David — the one that God promised to David would be the descendant who would sit on his throne for eternity. Also, remember our connection to these truths. Remember: if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. Basic gospel truths that focus on the reality of Jesus' resurrection, his messianic identity, and our connection to that — either as people who believe it or as people who reject it.

Remember, remember, remember — basic gospel truths have to be a foundational element of any true church of God. And it is not something that we hear just one time and then say, "Yeah, yeah, we got it. I understand it." No, we need to continually not only remind ourselves of it, but people even say, "Preach the gospel to yourself daily." You need to preach to yourself the grace of God imparted into your life through the work of Jesus Christ. The implication of what Paul is unpacking for Timothy in this simple statement — "remind them of these things" — is that every Christian, not just teachers, not just pastors, needs to have a rock-solid grasp of the gospel message. So when we see things like "Christ is mine forevermore," do you even know with confidence what that means? Do you understand what that song is proclaiming? What does it mean that Christ is ours? Or when we sing "In Christ alone my hope is found," do we understand what that means — to have a hope that is found in Christ alone?

We need, every one of us, to know with confidence what we mean by that. If Peter, for example, is right when he says, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given among men by which we can be saved" — do you understand what he is saying? When Jesus spoke, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" — do you understand what he meant by that? We need to be crystal clear about what that means. We need to be crystal clear about the way of salvation and about the one through whom we are saved. We need to understand that salvation is a gift of God alone, that it is from God the Father, through Christ his Son, by the power of his Holy Spirit. That it is not of any work that we could do. That because we are dead in our sins and transgressions, we are unable to make ourselves right before God. We are unable to redeem ourselves from our own sin and wickedness. We are unable to atone for our own sins. And what we need is someone to do that for us. And the only one qualified to do that for us was Jesus Christ. He alone is the one who is able to save. And he alone is the one who actually saves — through his life, through his death, through his resurrection. And that is the only way of salvation.

And so we need to be reminded of that again and again. We need to remind ourselves that we have been saved by that. For those of you who have repented of your sin and embraced that for your salvation, you are trusting deeply in that when Satan is tempting you and accusing you — wanting you to doubt your salvation, wanting you to doubt the power of God to save, wanting you to doubt the faithfulness of God to keep you saved. You need to remind yourself again and again that not only is God powerful, but he is faithful, and he is able to keep you saved for all eternity. We need to understand that this is what we are called to believe. This is what we are called to share with others. That is what we mean when we talk about evangelism — that we are supposed to go out and let people know about the way of salvation through Christ alone. And so teachers need regular reminding of this for their own souls. And they also need regular reminding of it so that they can equip and encourage the congregation not only to believe it, but to go out and proclaim it.

But Paul also says there are some things that these men and Timothy should not involve themselves in. After saying "remind them of these things and charge them before God," he also says not to quarrel about words. It does not mean words do not matter. Do not hear Paul saying that. Words do actually matter — they matter a lot. It does not mean that you should never concern yourself about nuance or context or what people mean by the words they use. What it means is that people can get caught up on trivialities while actually neglecting the word. Notice that Paul is going to go on to tell Timothy that he is supposed to devote himself to rightly handling the word of truth. So you almost have this contrast between quarrels about words and the word of truth — things that do not really matter set against something that matters infinitely. Quarreling about words is contrasted with rightly handling the word of truth. And these quarrels are things that sound spiritual. They sound important. They sound significant. They make people seem like they know what they are talking about, as if they are really advancing heaps and heaps of knowledge and righteousness and intellectual pursuits of godliness — and yet it is all blanketed under words that do not really mean anything or do not really matter.

Contextually, it seems that this is at least in part related to errors about the resurrection, but Paul's instruction is purposefully broad so that we do not limit it to just one specific topic. There is an example — and there does not seem to ever really be any documentation that this was actually a debate — but when people want to poke fun at medieval Christian scholasticism, they say, "Oh, they used to just sit around and debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin." It does not seem like that was ever actually a debate, but it is used as a way to say they just got themselves all worked up about things of little spiritual significance. Maybe it is things like that. It is also things like, "Well, you know, the word 'Trinity' is never in the Bible." That sounds very sophisticated and very intellectual, but it escapes the underlying significance of the word. Why was the word used? Or when proponents against Christianity say, "Show me in the Bible where Jesus said he was God" — as if because the exact phrase is not there, he was not God and did not think he was. No, that approach manages to avoid all the understanding of everyone who heard Jesus and wanted to kill him for blasphemy. It is the same thing when we argue about labels like Calvinist or Arminian, complementarian or Reformed, but we do not actually talk about the substance beneath those words. We are quarreling about words without actually discussing what they mean. We see this in wider culture too, where people throw around terms like "woke," "DEI," "fascist," or "white Christian nationalism" — they throw around all these terms but do not actually say what they mean by them. And when pressed to explain, they kind of flounder.

I remember my brother and I, when we were young — probably around ten or eleven — having a very robust debate about whether or not Adam and Eve had belly buttons. I do not think that was really all that spiritually significant. In spite of our attempting to wrap our heads around that question — if they were not actually birthed by someone, would they have a belly button? — I do not know. Probably if we got too far into the weeds about it, we could be called out for quarreling about words that did not have a whole lot of significance. But things like that — this is what Paul is trying to get them to avoid: avoiding actually digging into the word of God and instead arguing about things that do not really have a whole lot of substance. This is what he wants to instruct the would-be leaders of the church. Instruct them on the significance of the gospel and on avoiding things that do not really contribute to the spiritual health of the church.

Something else he wants Timothy to understand is that the people in the church need to work on their work — and that starts with Timothy. Even though we are convinced of the sovereignty of God over creation, the sovereignty of God over our salvation, and the sovereignty of God even over our sanctification, the Christian life is never "Jesus, take the wheel" or "Let go and let God" — as if there is no effort on our part. We are called to act. We are called to work. We are called to be doers. The ESV here says, "Do your best," Timothy, in verse 15. The New American Standard says, "Be diligent." The New Living Translation just says, "Work hard." The idea is that Timothy, you are supposed to put in serious effort — into what? Into the study of God's word and understanding it. What does it mean? This is the kind of work that God approves of: investing real resources into not only understanding it, but being able to explain it with clarity.

How do we use his word? There is a right way. You are supposed to rightly handle the word of truth. The Greek word for "rightly handling" literally means something like "cutting it straight." The idea is like imagining a farmer plowing a row — it needs to be straight so that it is easy to plant the seeds and then easy to harvest the crop. If the rows are all over the place, it is going to be very hard. Or if you are a woodworker and you are going to rip a piece of plywood, you want the cut to be straight so that when you use it for what you need it for, it will fit — it will not be a wavy line or an angled-off line. It needs to be square. My grandfather owned a machine shop — Aurora Custom Machining — and they did all this big work with vertical lathes and made parts for locomotives and tanks and industrial pumps and all sorts of things. And when you are cutting raw metal into parts, it has to be precise — not just within inches or even millimeters, but within thousandths of an inch, sometimes ten-thousandths of an inch. It has to be exact. It has to be precise.

That is the same imagery being used here. Timothy, when you take up the word of God, you need to work very hard to understand it, so that when you communicate it — either as a preacher or as a teacher — you are communicating it with precision, with accuracy, and at a level to which people are able to understand. That is one of the main goals of a preacher or a teacher of God's word: to help people understand it so that it can be applied to their lives accurately. Timothy was supposed to be raising up other men who could fill the role of preachers and teachers within the church, and they too were going to need to be able to work with God's word at the same level of precision. They need to work hard at the work of being pastors and teachers.

In 1 Timothy 1:6, Paul tells Timothy this: that certain persons, by swerving from these things, have wandered away into vain discussions, desiring to be teachers of the law but without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. This was a problem that Paul had to address with Timothy in this very church in Ephesus — there were individuals who were not doing a good job at this. Hebrews 5:12 likewise says, "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk and not solid food." That is a rebuke of people in the church who are supposed to be able to do this — they have been Christians long enough, they have been around it long enough, and yet they still have, as the writer of Hebrews describes it, the ability of an infant. They are not capable. James says a similar thing in James 3:1: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that those who teach will be judged with greater strictness." If you are going to be a teacher, you need to have certain capabilities, certain devotions, and certain levels of commitment.

Every Christian — from the newest, least knowledgeable Christian all the way to the oldest, most mature — needs to continue to mature as a student of God's word. Continue to be a learner of God's word. Continue to seek to refine the ability not only to understand but to use the word of God. This is inextricably embedded in the concept of being a disciple. And pastors and teachers are no exception. I spent years in seminary studying the Bible and studying theology at an academically rigorous level. I probably got the worst sleep of my entire life during my time in seminary. I felt tired all the time because of the demands placed on us to be devoted to studying this material. And yet sometimes I feel like when I graduated, the only truth that had truly been revealed to me was how little I knew of the word of God — that I had really only just scratched the surface of this infinitely deep resource, that the depths of God's revelation to us is so vast and so deep that no one should ever feel like they have arrived, that they have reached a level of full and complete competence. There is always more and more that we can draw from it. We can refine and refine our understandings to greater and greater levels. We should never feel like, "You know what, I think I have got it. I can kind of cruise from here on out."

Beware the church that has a lazy pastor. Lazy pastors are a liability to the church. You need individuals who can devote themselves to serious, lifelong study of God's word. They need to work hard at rightly handling this word of truth. If they do not, Paul says they should be ashamed. To have something so valuable, something so necessary for the health of the church — our ability to obey and live for the glory of God — and yet not to devote ourselves to it is a shameful thing. So many people would love to have the kind of access we have to the word of God, and yet they do not. And yet we sit with Bibles stacked on Bibles on our shelves, and we have Bibles on our phones, Bibles everywhere we go — and how little we know of them. If Jesus' apostles needed the kind of devotion and time with God's word that we see in Acts 6 — where there were material needs in the church, where there were widows who needed food distributed, but the twelve disciples were concerned that if they invested their time in that, as necessary as it was for those widows, they would be robbing the church of a more necessary thing: devotion to the word and to prayer — if it was that important for them to have that level of commitment, then certainly our pastors and teachers today need to have that same level of commitment: a willingness to work at the work of understanding and explaining the word of God.

The last thing that Paul gets into here with Timothy — as he is wanting to encourage him to help the people in the church not get bogged down in things that do not matter but to invest their energy in things that really do — is to help them to be confident in their confidence. He has already talked about not quarreling about words, but then in verse 16 he says, "Avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness." This is words devoid of any real significance — distant from, foreign to, and even opposed to godliness. And one of the things that has come up here is this issue that the resurrection had already happened. There are individuals in the church — two are specifically named, Hymenaeus and Philetus — who were spreading this misinformation. They have swerved from the truth, Paul says, and their talk is spreading like gangrene. They were saying that the resurrection had already happened.

This was part of the Gnostic heresy. Gnosticism despised the material world, the physical world. Gnostics believed that the physical was inherently evil and corrupted — irredeemable. They denied the human nature of Jesus. They also rejected the idea of any sort of physical, bodily resurrection — either of Jesus or of his followers — because for them, salvation was viewed as an escape from the physical, from this earthly bondage of an evil physical world. The last thing they would want is a bodily resurrection. And so they had this idea that essentially the resurrection was just a sort of spiritual reunion with God that had already happened — that once you were in the faith, you had spiritually ascended, if you will. This type of error, Paul says, is not just an inconvenience for the church and is certainly not benign. Paul says it is going to lead people to all sorts of ungodliness. With the Gnostics, that took two very different forms. One form was that because they believed the material was inherently evil, they promoted a sort of moral nihilism where nothing you did in the physical body really mattered. So you could engage in all sorts of immoral activities — whatever your imagination could come up with — because the body was already corrupt, so it did not really matter what you did. And then there was another, almost completely opposite form — a sort of moral asceticism — in which they rejected marriage and procreation because in doing so you were simply multiplying souls in bondage to the dark powers of the physical world.

But what Paul is saying is that these teachings, and people advancing them within the church, are not morally neutral and certainly not harmless. They can have a very destructive impact on the church. These people were preaching and teaching and advocating error — leading people astray, leading them away from the church, leading them into ungodliness, leading them far from glorifying God with their lives. And so Paul's encouragement to Timothy was, first of all, to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead. That is why it is the beginning point of this reminder. Bring them back to the reality of Christ's resurrection. Anchor yourself in that. Remind them also that if we have died with him, we will also live with him. There is a future, bodily resurrection for believers. This is a rock-solid fact. It is a capstone of our faith. One of the things Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 is that if there is no resurrection, then our faith is worthless — that we are wasting our time, that we are fools, to invest any time in this. And the counter to these false teachings — this worthless talk — is that we are supposed to be confident in our confidence.

And what is our confidence? Our confidence is that God will build and preserve his church. After saying that these people have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened, Paul says: "But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: the Lord knows those who are his. And let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." The "firm foundation" seems somewhat cryptic and could mean a lot of different things, but in context it seems he is talking about the church — that it is a reference to the church. And Paul highlights two seals that mark the true church. In other words, our firm foundation rests on an understanding of who the true church is and what makes a Christian truly a part of it. And it has to do with God. God — the Lord — knows who are his. It is the Lord who saves. It is the Lord who calls us. It is the Lord who redeems us. It is the Lord who seals and secures us for eternity. And we should have confidence that God knows who his sheep are and is not going to lose any of them.

"The Lord knows those who are his" is a quote from Numbers 16:5. It reads, "He said to Korah and to all his company, 'In the morning the Lord will show who is his and who is holy, and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses, he will bring near to him.'" This is dealing with the rebellion of Korah. If you do not know anything about that, that is your homework — go read the part of the book of Numbers that talks about Korah's rebellion. But the point is that Moses, speaking through God to these people, is saying that God knows who his true people are. And then, who could forget what Jesus says in John chapter 10, verse 14: "I am the good shepherd." And what does the good shepherd do? He knows his sheep, and his sheep know him. False teachers may infiltrate. False believers may impersonate. But God knows. God knows who are his. God is not tricked. God is not deceived. God knows who are his. Be confident in that confidence — that your salvation is secured by the one who calls and knows you. There is no deceiving him. There is no tricking him. There is no chance that he is going to lose any. John 6:39: "This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day." That is an amazing verse where Christ is talking about those two realities — God knows, and there is a resurrection that is coming.

So the first confidence we can have as we think about the solidity of the church is that God knows who belongs to the church. God knows who are his children. He will not lose them. And the other one is that true believers pursue righteousness. True believers do not pursue this irreverent babble. They do not pursue these ungodly ways. And this includes separating from those who are ungodly. This is something that time and again has been called upon for the church — to be called out, to be separated from sin, to be clearly identified as the people of God. This goes all the way back to the illustrations we have with the Israelites and what they were supposed to be and do in and among the nations. They were supposed to be clearly identified as God's people. They were supposed to be separated from the ways of the nations, the practices of the nations, and from participating in the idolatrous worship of the nations. There was supposed to be a clear line dividing them. The same is true of believers within the church today. There should be no doubt who we are and whose we are. And that includes separating from those who promote ungodliness. That does not mean we cannot go out and be lights in a dark world. That does not mean we cannot evangelize unbelievers. But we should not be in fellowship with them. It also means it is not only the teachers who are to avoid this worthless talk, this worthless teaching, and things that accompany ungodliness — all true Christians, however imperfectly, will want to separate from ungodliness and from things that are contrary to God's word. Be confident in this: God's church is a firm foundation that he has built, that he sustains, and that is supposed to be clearly distinct from the rest of the world.

So where does that leave us? Well, first, God is the Lord of his church. He knows his people. His people know him. That should be comforting to you. You are not going to be lost. You are not going to be given up on. You are not going to be left to fend for yourself. God is Lord of his church, and he knows you and he cares for you. Number two, God's word is his special revelation of himself and of his plan for us. So an accurate and clear understanding of it is essential for the church to remain faithful, for the church to be healthy, and for the church to be a light in a dark world. We have to have a clear and accurate understanding of it. So do not neglect the word of God. Yes, come on Sunday mornings and hear it taught and preached, but you cannot then close your Bible as soon as you leave at 11:45 and leave it in the backseat of your car for the rest of the week, only to pull it out again on Sunday morning. Do not neglect the word.

And I say this as a pastor speaking to you: do not settle for pastors who do not work hard to understand and explain it. And if you ever feel that I am shortchanging my duties to you as the people of God, I would encourage you to please come and confront me. This needs to be something that we as a church are devoted to. You need to know what you believe. If you do not know what you believe, then please invest some time and effort into knowing and growing in your understanding. And if you are a teacher — whether in a Bible study, a small group, or even children's church — understand what you are teaching. You might not feel like this applies to you, but when you sit in front of a group of eight-year-olds, you need to be able to rightly divide the word of truth for them. You need to be able to teach them with clarity and accuracy. The same thing applies to your Bible study, your small group, or whatever setting you find yourself in. We have a responsibility not to take this lightly or with a cavalier attitude. This is the word of God.

Let us pray. Dear Lord, I thank you for Paul's patient reminder to Timothy that he needs to be reminding the people in his church of these things. We ask that you would help us too to take them seriously. That we would be guarded against error. That we would not get caught up in arguing about trivialities without ever dealing with the substance of matters, and neglecting your word. May we be devoted to it. May you help us to find great comfort in the assurance that we have in you. You know who are yours, and your people are pursuing godliness and separating from ungodliness. Help us to be diligent in these things — not just in little bits of effort here and there, but in a lifetime of consistency. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.