Never Alone

If I asked you what the Great Commission is, how many of you know what I'm talking about? Hopefully all of you. If not, that's okay, because we're going to talk about it for a little bit right now, so you'll have the opportunity to learn. It's an important part of our Christian faith.

Christ, just prior to his ascension into heaven, charged his disciples who were there with some responsibilities — specifically to go into all the world, to make disciples, and to baptize those disciples in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them everything that he had commanded them. This is found in Matthew 28:19–20. And we have understood throughout church history that this was not just instructions for those disciples who happened to be with Christ as he ascended into heaven. It was actually a commissioning of all of Jesus Christ's disciples throughout history — that it applied to those individuals at that moment, but it applies to you and me today.

We as disciples of Christ have a responsibility to obey him by going into all the world, making disciples, baptizing, and teaching them. That's something we participate in. Each one of us doesn't do all of those things, but we all are to use our gifts, talents, and ability in support of that commissioning. Throughout history, the church has understood that to be our Great Commission — our central commission by Christ as we live out our lives here on earth. So in our quest to glorify God with our lives, that is front and center what we are supposed to be participating in.

Here's the cool thing about 2 Timothy as we wrap up this letter: the Apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, gives us an amazing example of how that commission and living in obedience to it might play out in any one of our lives. It happens to be the Apostle Paul's life, but what we see from his words, his example, and even his explanation is that this could be true of any one of us. We have much to learn here.

Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4, and we are going to read from verse 16 to the end of the letter. Paul says this:

"At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained at Corinth. I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you."

I want to address verses 19–22 first. This is a typical ending for a letter of that period — a typical ending for a letter of Paul's. We can look in Scripture and see other letters he wrote with similar endings. Many of the New Testament letters, not just the ones written by Paul, end with greetings and travel details like this. For example, this comment about coming before winter gives us a little understanding of why earlier in this chapter he encouraged Timothy to bring his cloak from Troas if he was able to come. It lets us know that winter is rapidly approaching, and that cloak is going to be vital to him enduring it if he lasts that long. These are just comments that are necessary when someone is writing a letter.

Also, we have identifications of people. Some of them we know by name from other comments, either in the Bible or from early church history. Some of these individuals, though, are really lost to history — we don't necessarily know specifically who they are, just that they were co-laborers with Paul and Timothy. This gives us an example of the importance of partnership in ministry. Paul and Timothy are not slogging through this on their own. As hard as it is for these men — and others like them, Barnabas, Silas, Peter — they are being supported by other Christians, both in close proximity to them and scattered around the Mediterranean.

It's important to understand they knew they were not lone rangers doing this all by themselves. Their work — and more importantly, the work of the gospel and the Great Commission — was being supported and obeyed by men and women who were vital to the ministry. It illustrates that reality: our kingdom work, our obedience to the Great Commission, requires collaboration and partnership, both individually and as local churches collectively. We need to be partnering together, working together, supporting the work of the ministry.

But when I look at verses 16–22 as a unit, there is a statement that stands out to me as if it's in all caps. It literally rises to the surface. I can't help but focus on it. To me, it's the anchor point of the ending of this letter, and it's a powerful testimony of how you and I should view our understanding of living out the Great Commission, and where our hope and source of strength lie. That is verse 17: "But the Lord stood by me."

I don't know if that's what jumped out to you as we made our way through those verses, but every time I read this portion of the letter, it's almost as if there are beams of light shining down on that statement. What's so encouraging about it is that Paul is telling Timothy, as a testimony of his own life at the end of this letter, that God's presence means there is always joy in obedience. As hard as the circumstances are — Paul under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his trial and most likely execution, with the harshness of winter rapidly approaching — he still has the utmost confidence and comfort because of God's involvement in his life and ministry, supporting the commission Paul is living in obedience to.

What you see right off the bat is that Paul, being in prison, has reliable support — support he can depend on. There's a statement in verse 16: "At my first defense." This has frustrated many a Bible scholar and church historian, because they're trying to lay out a neat and tidy timeline of the Apostle Paul's life, and this particular statement has proven somewhat confounding. It might be something that happened much earlier in his life that he's now referring back to, or it might be something present-tense, something that happened recently, and he's letting Timothy know about it. I lean more toward the latter in my understanding of this expression.

But what is he talking about — "my first defense"? At my first defense, he was basically left all to himself; no one came to stand by him, but all deserted him. He's talking about something like a preliminary hearing or a grand jury presentation. Someone is accused of a crime, and attorneys gather evidence, and before it goes to trial, they have to present their evidence to see if there's even cause to bring it to trial — is there enough evidence for the prosecution to build a compelling case against this individual? That's something like what Paul's referring to. He's been accused of some crime and is going to stand trial for it. There's a preliminary hearing where the evidence is presented to the court to determine if there's reason to go forward with the prosecution.

What Paul is saying is that at that particular time, when he had to face these accusations — not to defend himself yet, but just to hear them presented to the court — he had no support. He was all alone. It's a dire circumstance he presents, because he says first that there was no one who stood by him. But then it's almost as if they proactively and intentionally left him — all deserted him. It's as if there were believers who had the opportunity — maybe they had knowledge of this particular hearing, maybe they were with him knowing he was going to be brought into court to have these charges laid against him — but either way, it's rather depressing that after all Paul seems to have done for the church, in his need for support in ministry and companionship, there was nobody there. He was all alone. No one came. He was all by himself.

I think we can relate to what that would be like. If you were to go into a hearing — and none of us are legal experts, and it doesn't seem like the Apostle Paul was either — here he is navigating this all by himself, not even having somebody who could just be there with him. Maybe you know the kind of support and help that even that can be — to have somebody with you, even if they don't say anything, even if they're not going to stand in your defense because they don't have that opportunity. Just to have them present with you can be a great source of comfort and encouragement — to not have to endure these kinds of things all by yourself.

I think this is one of the reasons Christ modeled this in the life of the disciples by sending them out two by two as they went out to be fledgling evangelists, to begin to present the reality of who Christ was to the world. They weren't going to have to do it all by themselves. Even if the other person doesn't say a word, just having somebody there is a kind of support that is helpful to have an associate with you.

So Paul says, I didn't have anyone. In fact, it's worse than that — people actually deserted him. People had been there, but they left. It's a bad situation made worse by lack of support. I think most of us have been there. We've all had bad situations in our lives, right? And I'm guessing we've all had occasions where we've had to go through those bad situations all by ourselves, thinking, "If I just had somebody here with me, it would make it so much easier." That's exactly what happened to Paul.

There was a situation that unfolded in New Orleans in 1858 — an outbreak of yellow fever, and almost 5,000 people died from that disease. Because of that, people, including pastors, fled the city in droves. But not Benjamin Morgan Palmer. He was a minister. He stayed. He visited the sick. He offered them the hope of the gospel and comfort. What's even more remarkable is that twenty years later, another yellow fever outbreak enveloped the city of New Orleans, and he once again stayed faithful to his calling to the people of that city and ministered to them once again. It's said that during that second outbreak, Palmer visited between thirty and fifty people a day for three months straight, and yet still never missed a Sunday service or a midweek prayer meeting, staying faithful to his calling. It's a great example of what the opposite of abandoning people in their hour of need can mean to those around them, and a powerful testimony of someone willing to enter into very dangerous circumstances. There was nothing that would protect him from also contracting yellow fever, and yet he was willing to make that risk in order to stand by these people.

We've got the Apostle Paul here in a situation where he needs help, and it seems like he's all alone. But he wasn't. That's where the statement in verse 17 jumps off the page for me: "The Lord stood by me." Everyone else left, but he was not alone. Everyone deserted him, but not the Lord. The Lord stood by me.

Have you noticed that our typical response to difficulties in life is to ask questions like, "Where was God?" or "Why is this happening to me?" Challenges come, difficulties come, tragedies come, natural disasters — whatever — and our first question is, "Where is God? What happened, God? You abandoned us. You deserted us. You left us." This was not a problem for Paul. He didn't question that. He didn't wonder where God was. He had a confident assurance, a real understanding of the perfect presence of the Lord in the midst of this challenging time. He wasn't saying, "Since things aren't going the way I want, there must be a problem with the way the world is working. God must be losing control. God must want something bad to happen to me. God must not know what he's doing." All those thoughts that so easily run through our minds were not troubling the Apostle Paul at all. It wasn't a problem for him. He knows this isn't a mistake. He is confident in the sovereignty of God, confident in God's perfect plan, purpose, and timing. And he knows that even though it would have been lovely to have the support of friends or fellow laborers, he has not been abandoned. In fact, the opposite is true — the only one who hasn't deserted him is the Lord.

In Psalm 34:18, the psalmist says, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." The psalmist doesn't downplay the reality of difficulties in life, but has confident assurance in the perfect protection and presence of God. That's exactly what Paul believed. Psalm 145:18: "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." Psalm 46:1: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble; therefore we will not fear." It doesn't say God is our refuge and strength so that we don't have times of trouble — no, times of trouble are a reality. It's part of living in a world under the curse, a world full of sin and the effects of sin. And yet God is near.

Can I tell you a secret? You can be far from God — you can even be running from God, trying to get away from his presence — and even then, in moments of despair and desperation, you can cry out to God and he will hear you and answer your prayer. Just ask Jonah. He was trying desperately to get away from God, trying desperately to escape God's plan for his life, and found himself in very difficult circumstances. He cried out to God, and God heard his prayer and answered him. He was present.

But I also need to tell you this: if you want to truly have a firm grasp and confidence in the presence of God, you need to not neglect your relationship with him and just hope you'll have that confidence when times of difficulty come. You need to, like the Apostle Paul, actively maintain your relationship with your Savior even during times of peace and ease. If you do that, you're going to be in a much better position to draw near to him in times of distress.

I love that he mentions at the end of verse 17, "I was rescued from the lion's mouth," because that immediately makes me think of Daniel in the lion's den. Does it make you think of that too? I think of Daniel in the lion's den, and of David's statement as he's trying to convince Saul to let him fight Goliath. Do you think when they threw Daniel into the lion's den, that was the first time he prayed to God? No — we know that's the reason he got thrown in there to begin with, because he was a man faithful and steadfast in daily coming before the Lord in prayer, fervent and dependent in prayer. So when he was at his most desperate moment, the presence of God was as real to him as you and I sitting in the same room together. The angel of the Lord closed the mouths of the lions, and Daniel had a wonderful night with them.

David, before facing Goliath, had trusted God to deliver him long before he ever faced Goliath. He pleaded with Saul to let him face Goliath because God had already delivered him from a bear and a lion as he was out tending the sheep. James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." But I want to challenge you: start when life is easy. Don't wait till life is hard. Don't wait till you feel abandoned. Don't wait until you feel the pressure of life without any human support around you and think, "I need God right now because I don't have anyone else." You can still cry out to God in those moments — that's where Jonah is a helpful illustration to us. But it's much better to be like Paul or Daniel or David, to make your communion with God, your fellowship with him, a daily part of your life, so that even when life is difficult, you have every confidence that God is with you.

I'm blown away by Paul's confidence when faced with struggles. I haven't had to endure things like that in my life. It seems like the worst I've had to deal with, compared to what Paul went through, was minor inconveniences. And yet I'm so often quick to join with everyone else and think, "Where were you, God? What happened?" And yet Paul is so confident: "The Lord stood by me."

I'm also very convicted by what he views as comfort — the comfort of God's provision. He said, "The Lord stood by me and strengthened me." And then notice this in verse 17, which is almost like a foreign language: "So that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it." Paul lays out for us what is of real importance.

I started the sermon by asking about the Great Commission — go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them, teach them. Remember that? I hope so, because that was about ten minutes ago, and if you don't remember it, you should probably go see your doctor. But what I didn't mention was how Matthew 28 actually ends. The Great Commission ends with a promise directly connected to Paul's circumstances — Christ telling his disciples, "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Paul is comforted by this reliable source of support, the presence of God, because he understands the truth of what Christ told his disciples: that he's not going to abandon them, not going to leave them alone. Wherever they go, they will be in his presence. He will be with them. Paul is comforted by the reliable support of God's presence, knowing that he will be satisfied by being able to continue the work of the Great Commission, to evangelize unbelievers.

Paul doesn't say, "The Lord stood by me and strengthened me, and I got out of prison." He doesn't say, "The Lord stood by me and strengthened me, and the charges were dropped, and I got sent to a luxury resort on the Mediterranean coast." No — Paul breathed a sigh of relief when he could get back to gospel proclamation. I don't know if I'm humbled by that or discouraged by it, because of the way I tend to want God to deliver me, and what I want him to deliver me to. See how this gets convicting? It's convicting for me.

How often for us is the pressure we face simply the pressure of doing the work of evangelism? Our struggle is just being obedient to what God has commanded. How often are we hoping to be rescued — and what we're hoping to be rescued from is actually having to tell people about the gospel? "Lord, deliver me from having this awkward conversation. Lord, save me from the stress of talking to strangers. Lord, spare me from being confronted about my faith." I don't know if you've ever prayed those prayers, but I've definitely thought those thoughts. This is going to be uncomfortable — I want to just have a nice, easy plane ride, or go through life without having to extend myself to the point of actually talking to people about what the Bible says about sin and salvation and Christ and the cross. And I'm not pointing fingers — I'm raising my hand. I would be the first to say I tend to want to be released from the work. That's the deliverance I'm often looking for.

So often we get tied up in knots about evangelism because what we're really looking for is some secret method where we don't actually have to talk to people about the gospel. We want a magic formula, a light switch we can just turn on so people will just figure it out, or something we can give them and let them worry about reading it or figuring it out on their own. "Lord, give me a system where I don't actually have to go through the work of doing evangelism."

Paul is an amazing example to us — not to lift him up or put him on a pedestal, but as an example of what is possible through dependence on Christ. We're not preaching Paul, but he's an amazing example of what it can look like if we really cultivate a relationship with the Lord, if we really have a heart for the lost, if we really recognize, "I struggle with this, Lord — I struggle with it, with fear, with lack of confidence, with whatever — and I need your help." It is possible. It pained Paul to think there were people dying without Christ who had never heard. So for him to get through this ordeal and be back in a position where he can tell people about Christ is all he cares about — that's what gives him full assurance that what is really important can still go on.

The real importance for Paul's life, and for ours, is not comfort. It's not seeing our dreams come true. It's not staying out of jail. It's telling people about salvation through faith in Christ. That's what is really important. I don't know how you would have written this verse — "The Lord stood by me and strengthened me" — and then what you would hope to put in the second part of that verse. But I don't think that's what I would have wanted to put.

The real importance for Paul's life was being able to tell people about the gospel — that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. If we were to stand before a holy God, we would be condemned justly because of our lives, because God is holy and we are not, because sinners cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. We are in a desperate situation. But because of that, God in his love sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to take on himself the pain and punishment for our sins, to atone for it, to pay the penalty, so that we can be brought into a right relationship with God — to die on the cross and rise from the dead three days later. The promise of the gospel is that all who believe in that will be saved. All who trust in Christ, and Christ alone, will be saved. And this is what Paul wants to tell people about. He truly believes this is good news, not just for him, but for everyone who would believe. It's his heart's desire and great joy to be able to get back to doing that. The promise of Jesus himself is that we can and should do that eagerly, knowing that he is always with us.

Whenever you have those conversations — whether they end up as awkward, uncomfortable, or confrontational as you imagine, or whether they go smooth as glass — you can have this confidence that you haven't done it all by yourself. God is with you. Christ's promise to never leave you or forsake you is true. The promise that the believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you is true. You are not abandoned in those moments when you endeavor to share the gospel with friends, family, or strangers. He is with you. So you can go about, just like Paul, doing the one thing that is ultimately important.

I also love this statement — "At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them." I like to describe this as reactionary grace. Paul's prayer, "May it not be charged against them," is an expression of truly God-honoring beauty. He's facing pressure and harassment for his Christian faith. He's abandoned by his ministry partners. He understands they faced the possibility of real personal danger if they associated with him — that's one of the reasons they abandoned him. If the people in that courtroom were saying, "Well, who's that with you? Are they part of this? Maybe we ought to bring charges against them too" — he understands the reality of responding to situations like this with fear and failure. That's how all of Jesus' disciples pretty much responded when he was arrested in Gethsemane. They all hit the road and ran. Peter hung with him for a little bit, but then he crumbled.

Paul responds with grace. You know what's so amazing about this? Paul had this very same prayer prayed over him when he was holding the cloaks while his associates stoned Stephen to death for preaching Christ. He had been a supervisor to that whole execution, and Stephen prayed these same exact words over Paul and his associates. Acts 7:58-60 says: "They cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' And when he had said this, he fell asleep."

Paul understood what it was like to have somebody invoke the mercy of God for something like that — something maybe even much worse than what his associates had done by not standing by him at his trial. This gives us a chance to see someone glorifying God with their life by not taking this personally, by seeing it as an opportunity to lay aside what is right to be upset about. "I have every right to be upset with you people because you abandoned me, you deserted me, you wouldn't stand by me" — and instead, he can react to them with grace: "I pray this does not get held against them."

There's a benefit in Paul responding this way that doesn't immediately rise to the surface — a benefit for Paul, and a benefit for you and me when we respond similarly to people we perceive to have wronged us in ways like this. They abandoned us. They weren't there for us when they should have been. And if you're going to stand on what they owe you, or on this thing they need to now do as payment for how they've wronged you, you're going to find yourself wrestling with the poison of bitterness. Paul is not embittered, is he? He has the benefit of being spared from that corrosiveness that eats away at you when you perceive yourself to be wronged and think somebody needs to pay you back.

People are going to disappoint you. I have to tell you this — people are going to fail you. You are going to do that too. You are going to disappoint people. You are going to fail people. It's just a reality of life. We are not perfect. We have struggles. We are sinful. We are selfish. We are shortsighted. We are cowardly. We are all those things. So we are going to fail people, and we are going to be failed by people. And if we want to stand on "you did me wrong, and you need to get what's coming to you," and have this sort of vindictiveness about us, so often it doesn't matter what you want — there's an inability to make it right because time has passed, and all you're left with is holding on to a bitter grudge. We've all seen relationships destroyed. We've all seen churches split. We've all seen arguments held on to for months, weeks, years, and decades because of this bitterness that people cannot rid themselves of, often over the most trivial things. And yet Paul, by reflecting the grace of God in response to this disappointment, is spared from this root of bitterness that would grow in his heart and ruin him if it were allowed to take root. We so often reject the healing pill of grace and elect to drink the poison of bitterness. We get frustrated when our lives are miserable as a result of it, and fail to see that simply living out what we see modeled in Christ's life would be so much more healing to us and to the people around us.

Don't withhold forgiveness. Don't insist on making people pay you back for the ways they've failed you. If you lose out on this opportunity to let the light of Christ shine out in you, it might be hurtful to those people, but it's going to be deeply wounding to yourself as well. Bitterness is a self-inflicted wound — we talk about shooting yourself in the foot, and it's that type of thing. You think you're doing it to someone else, but you're really doing it to yourself.

I love that we see Paul's priority for the gospel, but also his readiness to extend grace to these people. As hurtful as it was, as hard as it was to sit there all alone when his friends had abandoned him — not alone, because the Lord stands by him, but not feeling supported by them — his reaction isn't, "I hope they know what they've done to me. I hope they know how deeply they've hurt me. I hope they know what failures they've been to me in my ministry." That's not his reaction. His reaction is, "May it not be held against them." Times are hard. It's difficult. He's not embittered.

Let me give you a few things to wrap up and take home with you — like a doggy bag you can open up after lunch and gnaw on for a little bit.

First, understand: evangelism is its own reward. Being able to share the gospel with people, as hard as it can make us get out of our comfort zone, is its own reward — to be a part of God's unfolding plan and building up of his kingdom. Look at it as a gift of God to us and a joy to participate in.

Second, understand this: maybe you can't be the messenger, whatever the reason, but you can still be the messenger's support. You can stand by people. You can be like the people mentioned at the end of this letter, who themselves are going out and doing their own part of the ministry. That's one of the things I love about the gifts of the Spirit — we all have our own unique blendings and giftings so that we are mutually beneficial to one another in support of the Great Commission. Stand by those who are sharing the gospel. Don't cave in and leave them all by themselves just because the pressure gets intense. Be a true partner in ministry.

Third, cultivate your relationship with the Lord before you're in the throes of opposition. That's why daily devotions and quiet time aren't just boxes we're checking off — this is supposed to be truly feeding our souls and strengthening our relationship with the Lord. This isn't busy work; it's supposed to be life-sustaining, strengthening your relationship with the Lord. So do it now, before you are overwhelmed by pressures and challenges.

Fourth, I would encourage you to be quick to pray for God's mercy on others. Let that be our reaction — we want grace and mercy poured out on people. We are all weak. We all need it ourselves. We should want it for other people as well.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for the way Paul ends this letter with this powerful, personal testimony that gives us a glimpse into his perspective on life, his view on what is ultimately important, and the source of his strength — his full confidence in you, in your presence. Lord, may we look to this as an example of how we might live our lives as well, and not in our own strength. We know that Paul was not doing this in his own strength, that this took your grace being poured out in his life. Would you help us, in some way, to exhibit these same character qualities — a true dependence on you, a desire to see your gospel spread throughout the world, and hearts that want grace and mercy to flow out of them. Help us to be guarded against the root of bitterness, and instead to be people who are quick to forgive. Amen.