Do Not Be Ashamed

Introduction

You’re making your way to 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy 1, we’re going to read that text as we get started this morning. 2 Timothy 1, beginning in verse 8. 2 Timothy 1, verse 8. It says, Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I’ve believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Clearly, this is a personal letter as we look at 2 Timothy, a personal letter that’s written from Paul to his fellow worker Timothy. This is pretty near Paul’s death, or at least he seems to think it’s going to be near his death. As we read through the letter, this is impending in chapter 4. He feels like he’s finished the course.

Things have come to an end. We don’t know exactly how things ended for Paul, but at least in his own mind, I think he thinks execution is near. He’s imprisoned in Rome. And he has some things that he wants to say to Timothy. He wants to encourage Timothy about his work. We don’t know where Timothy actually is either. We sometimes assume he’s in Ephesus. He certainly was in 1 Timothy when that letter was written. But there are some indications within the letter itself that maybe he’s left. He’s on his way to see Paul, and Paul’s sort of expecting that he’s going to come see him at some point. But Paul feels the need to write this letter to encourage Timothy. And I think there’s maybe a lesson even in just that reality that this man who was appointed by God through the laying on of the apostles’ hands needed some encouragement.

I don’t know exactly why Paul felt this was needed. Maybe he thinks that Timothy is becoming timid. Earlier in the text, the part we didn’t read, he says, I remind you to fan and to flame the gift of God. Clearly, Timothy had a ministry and a mission. And maybe it is that Paul is hearing or he is worried that Timothy is kind of losing some of his zeal. Paul’s in prison, and there’s bad things happening all around, and you know, that’s a circumstance or the threats of some situations that could cause someone maybe to not be quite as bold as Paul would want. And so maybe that’s the reason that he’s writing Timothy. He also could just be that these are just Paul’s final words. You know, he’s he knows he’s nearing the end.

Timothy is a beloved son in the faith, and he wants to make sure he leaves some words with Timothy to encourage him and to continue on in his work and his ministry, even after he is well off the scene and is no longer there to encourage him. He wants to have something down for him that he can go back to and look at. Either way, it seems that Paul is worried, particularly about the fear of shame in a world that rejects Jesus. That’s the setting here, and a lot of what 2 Timothy deals with is the idea of the shame that comes, at least from the perspective of the world, of following Jesus Christ, of going along with this message of one who is crucified. I mean, this is a shameful thing in the ancient world.

You don’t crucify upstanding good citizens. And so to go around the world and saying, Well, we follow this guy who was crucified by the Romans is not a picture of honor and glory to the minds of most people. So you can understand why people in the first century world may have some timidity, may wrestle with fear and with some doubts. And Paul wants to make sure Timothy, especially this one who’s going to be influential in a big way, and he’s encouraging him to do so in chapter two, which we didn’t read this morning. He wants to make sure he’s not fearful or not timid, that he’s going to continue on this good work. But even with all of this, even though there’s some, I think really specific things to Timothy, I think there’s some great principles for us to take out today in our modern lives as those who are following Jesus from the wording that Paul gives here.

And I understand that as Paul’s writing Timothy, there’s special situations that he’s dealing with. That Timothy is divinely appointed, that he is chosen by the Apostle Paul to work with him. And so I understand all of that. But I do think the principles within this are concepts and ideas that really relate to us, particularly the idea of shame. Because we live in a world that regularly tries to mock and shame those who follow Jesus Christ. And not just claiming to follow Jesus, but those who actually set out to live according to the will of Jesus and do things the way Jesus has said to do them, the way that God has encouraged us to live. He’s called us to holiness, it says in this text, to be set apart and different.

And that’s the sort of thing the world mocks at and looks at with disdain. And there’s various examples we could point to, even in recent times, to point that very thing out. But I think you’re familiar enough with the concept that I don’t need to do that. But it’s just the reality that if you’re going to follow Jesus Christ, you’re going to encounter opposition. You’re going to encounter those who look down on you, who think you’re silly, who think you’re stupid, who think you’re foolish. And this is just the nature, even all the way back in Timothy’s time, of what this meant to believe and to put our hope in God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. There’s some terms within this reading that I think maybe should get some further explanation just so we know what we’re talking about.

Some older terms like entrust and deposit and these kind of guard, you know, these things that we don’t know normally use this kind of language. So I want to take just a moment to explain what Paul’s doing here with some of this language. In fact, deposit and entrust are actually the same word, but to explain it in English sometimes within the text, it uses both. And the reason why the word guard is attached there is because this Greek term is only used three times in the New Testament, and all of them are really within a few verses. So if we went back to 1 Timothy chapter 6, the very last two verses, he says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you, avoid irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by purposeing it, some have swerved from the faith.

Grace be with you. So this is how he ends his first letter. Then the next chapter, we have the next two uses of this word deposit or entrust. And all three of them, they’re only ever used as well with the word guard. So guard what you have been entrusted with, right? Or keep or observe or watch. Watch over the things that you’ve been entrusted with. What is Paul talking about? I think maybe he’s talking just in big picture, general terms, just about the gospel. But I think to kind of get specific about this idea of the idea of a deposit or something that is entrusted, I think we can break this down maybe into a couple different areas.

And you’re going to do that for some person or for some purpose. Right? The idea of stewardship. And the other sort of connected concept there is one of value. So some of you may have the New American Standard Bible, and in your Bible, it uses the word treasure. Right? So guard the treasure. We don’t entrust things to people that are worthless.

You know, maybe there’s times that we want to teach our children or something, and maybe I’ve done this sort of thing. Things that aren’t extremely valuable that say, hey, you keep this, and I’m going to get it from you later, right? We’re trying to teach some lessons. And so maybe something that isn’t all that valuable we’ll use as a teaching thing or an example. But in real life, we don’t entrust things that don’t matter. We’ve done some really fun things recently, Xander and I especially. And there’s just there’s been some times where I’ve had to be really careful about some of the things I’m doing. So many of you know we got to go to the masters, which was super fun. Someone overnighte tickets to me.

You know, I took those and I put them immediately in a safe. Where if the house burned down, I would still have those tickets. Right. and then when we left, you know how many times I checked my bag to make sure the tickets were in a very secure place that someone couldn’t just reach in and grab, or I couldn’t drop, or various other number of things that could happen. I mean, this is what we do with things that we value. I mean, I didn’t do that with my ink pen. You know, I didn’t go put it in the safe and make sure it was in the right pocket and then check it like 18 times while we’re on the plane. You know, we don’t do those with that with things that don’t actually matter.

1. Guard the Treasure Entrusted to You

And sometimes it’s for other people, and some of this was for Xander, right? I didn’t want to get all the way there and then not have the tickets and say, sorry, you know, we can’t go in. and sometimes maybe you’re the one who’s entrusted with tickets or some other type of thing that’s valuable for other people, and you don’t want to be the person who you get to the event or the thing, and oh, sorry, I messed it up. Right? So we understand the concept of being entrusted or having something, stewardship, and then and this is over something that’s valuable, that matters. Right? And so this is what Paul’s really talking about here in this text: this idea of don’t be ashamed about what you have, but realize that what you have, first of all, is a treasure.

It is valuable beyond our comprehension. And we’re gonna kind of work backwards this morning. And we read 8 through 14, and to some extent, we’re gonna really go from 14 back to 8. So that’s gonna be sort of the path we take here. Because I want to start with the end, which is this idea where he says, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. And this is where in the New American Standard it says, guard the treasure that is entrusted to you.

You know, this is not just a feel-good sort of event. You know, God loves you and he did some stuff for you. You know, great. That’s not what this is. This is something much more valuable than that. This is a treasure that is priceless, that we actually can’t comprehend the value of this. And the starting place there, and what I think he wants Timothy to understand as you know, a loving father in the faith, or someone who’s worried that he’s starting to lose some of his zeal, whichever it is, he wants to remind him of how valuable the gospel actually is. And you notice within the text, as we read, there’s there’s a good section here that is actually just kind of confessional, right? It’s sort of creedal.

He’s just stating these beliefs, he’s stating these realities or these truths about Jesus and about what he did and what was accomplished and how it’s according to the will of God and all of this. You know, I think Timothy knew that. I think Timothy probably had a decent handle on those basic core principles of the gospel. And so why is it that Paul’s running through all of that?

Sometimes just the information that we know gets a little detached from our heart and from our zeal. And Paul is doing some work here, I think, to try to fan that flame, help Timothy fan the flame and say, hey, remember all of these things that we’ve talked about before. The things you’ve heard me say and heard me preach that I want you actually to entrust to other faithful men. Chapter 2 and verse 2. Right? We’ve got to get all these things back in alignment and make sure that all the things I trained you to do, you’re remembering to do that. Sounds kind of like a father, doesn’t it? And so it’s not that Timothy just doesn’t understand any of this or doesn’t have the information or that he needs a rundown on what the gospel message is again.

No, I think he understands that. But Paul is emphasizing here how valuable all of this is.

I mean, there’s all sorts of things. But kids, they love for you to see stuff. It’s all treasures to them. And when they have something they’re excited about, they want to tell you about it. Right? They don’t run to the other room and keep it quiet and not say anything. No, because that’s not what we do with treasures. We get to do something fun or we have an exciting story to tell. And we go find our close friends and we want to share that with them. We want them to know the experience we had or the thing that we got or whatever it is, because that’s what we do with treasures. We want we keep them, we guard them, we want to talk about them. We’re not ashamed of them.

But we realize how valuable they are, and we want others to celebrate that with us. We want others to rejoice in the good treasure that we also have. There’s a reminder here to Timothy about how amazing the gospel is. How powerful the gospel is.

But initially it was monetary. And even Jesus uses this sort of illustration, right? In Matthew 25, the parable of the talents, where he talks about one man getting five and one man getting two, and one man getting one. And so that they go and they do what they do with their talents, and then the master’s going to come back, and you know the story. The five and the two talent men, they go out and they work with those talents and they build and they grow. And when the master comes back, there’s more. And then there’s the one talent man. What does he do? He’s afraid. He’s worried about what’s going to happen with what he’s been entrusted with, and so he does nothing. He hides it.

He takes what he’s given, this treasure and buries it in the ground and doesn’t use it for anything. And this is the sort of thing that Jesus and his example and Paul here with Timothy wants to understand is not the right way to do things. When you have a treasure, you want to use this properly. You want to be a good steward of what you’ve been given. And so that’s why he makes the statement earlier to fan in the flame, the gift of God. This thing that has been given to Timothy, his mission, his work as an evangelist. This was not given to him for fear, but for power. And the same thing remains true for us today. In a different way, we don’t work the same way that Timothy did.

We aren’t having this divine institution of a ministry by the hands of Paul, but we are God’s people working for God’s purposes. And as God’s people working for his purposes, which is talked about here in this text, we don’t go bury that in the ground and hide in fear. We treasure what we have. We guard it, we protect it, we use it for good purposes. We realize that God had a great plan before the world began, right? That’s what this text says.

And it’s not because of who we are or what we’ve done, but it’s because of his own purpose and grace that he gave us in Christ Jesus. This is the message. This is a treasure. And if God’s calling was based on my own merit, I’d be in really bad shape. He makes the same point to the Israelites. Like, I didn’t call you because you were so big and great and powerful. I chose to work through you despite the fact that you weren’t all of those things. Deuteronomy 8 and 9 talks all about this. But God can use the things that are lowly, the things that are humble, the things that are not wise and noble. He can use the foolish of this world to accomplish his will and his purposes and his plans.

2. I Know Whom I Believed; He Is Able

And all this he’s reminding Timothy of here, Paul’s doing in this letter. And so the next part of this is the idea that God is able. It’s not all just tied up in me and what I’m doing and who I am. In fact, that’s very small part of this puzzle. But actually, it’s about God and who he is and what he’s done and what he is continuing to do. In this little phrase, which actually we just sung about, and there’s some little nuances there that I might talk about here in just a moment. But in this line in verse 12, Paul says, Hey, this is why I’m suffering like I do. You know, I was called to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher, and I’m going to continue to suffer, and I’m not ashamed because I know whom I believed.

That’s the starting point. Like, I’m not ashamed of this because I know the one that I believe in. And if you’re here this morning and you are doubting, right? And like you’re not sure what you believe, let me ask you that. How do you have any kind of confidence at all if you don’t know what you believe in or whom you believe in? A lot of the confidence and a lot of the assurance, which he goes on to say, this persuasion or this conviction comes from the idea that I believe in Yahweh, the creator of the whole universe. And whatever men say and whatever the world tries to do essentially doesn’t actually matter that much. Paul says, I’ll go on suffering because I know whom I believe.

What do you believe? You believe in atoms randomly running into each other and randomly creating something out of nothing? Is that what you believe in? Are you convicted in that? Does that have any kind of purpose or significance to life? Is that taking you somewhere? Or is this all just meaningless? I mean, that’s the ultimate reality if that’s what we believe in. I hope that you know whom you believe in. It’s not just a what or a thing, but is a being. Who made all of this happen? And that’s what Paul’s saying here. I know what I believe, and so I’m sitting in prison. I’m fine with all of it. I’ll continue to suffer for the gospel because I know whom I believe, and I know what he’s like.

I know who he is. God gave us a spirit not of fear, he tells Timothy, but of power and love and self-control. Notice the wording and the verbiage he uses here. Share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. But I’m not ashamed, for I know whom I believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. I love that phrase, he is able. We sing a song sometimes with that phrase, he is able. It’s focused on what God can do, what God is able to do, on his power, which is a significant aspect of what’s happening in this text. Twice the idea of God’s power is already referenced, and then here Paul says, He’s able.

The problem is not on God’s side of the equation. God can guard it all, he can keep it. And so we’re not worried about God’s promises not being fulfilled and him not being able to keep what he said he was going to do. No, God’s able to deliver on his promises. And we’ve seen this story over and over and over again throughout scripture, beginning all the way back with Abraham. All the way back to Genesis 12 and 15 and 17 and 22, where he made these promises to Abraham, promises that we teach our kids all the time, the promised land, right? He’s going to be a great nation. The seed promise that all the families of the earth are going to be blessed through his seed.

And then what happened with all of that? He promised all this to Abraham and said, Hey, leave your father’s house. Go to a land that you don’t know, but I’m going to show you eventually. And all these amazing things are going to happen. And then what happened? He did it all. Sometimes through some really strange circumstances that we would never anticipate with our human minds.

This is how modern human people mock the way that things happen in our world because they can’t see the big picture. But Joseph, toward the end of his life, said, Hey, I know God allowed all this to happen so his will could come to fruition. Well, then he just brought them there so they could be slaves in Egypt. Well, then God, by a mighty hand, delivers them out of Egyptian slavery. And where does he take them? You know, the path isn’t always easy and simple and comfortable, and that’s obviously what we would like. I mean, does anybody in here want a really difficult, hard path in life? Things go really poorly and we hurt and we’re in pain. Nobody wants that.

But the reality is sin is into the world and we live in a fallen creation and bad things happen, and that’s just the reality of how it works. But God is working his plan in the midst of all of that to keep his promises. He delivers on his promises even through the sinful actions of humans. And we’ve seen this story repeated throughout the millennia, over and over again throughout the stories of Scripture, whether it’s Abraham or whether it’s the period of the kings or whether it’s Daniel, every single story we have in Scripture points to this reality that God delivers on his promises. And notice how Paul starts this letter. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.

Notice what the gospel message is itself. He says he’s revealed this. Right? This is down in verse 10. It’s been manifested or revealed. Manifested just means revealed, kids. So anytime you see manifest, it just say revealed. That’s all it is. Alright, so revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Anybody not want immortality? Like, nah, I’m not into that. I just want to die and decay. Like every single cartoon and movie and everything we ever watch is all about immortality. Want to live forever. I want to find the fountain of youth. I mean, all of these stories that we read about, that we watch in movies, it’s all about this idea of somehow overcoming death and having life and light.

Goodness. That’s the gospel. This is that treasure that’s been given to us that we are entrusted with. This is what Paul’s telling him here. This is an understanding of what God has done through his grace and according to his purposes, he’s made all of this happen. He said he would do it, and now he’s doing it. It’s being revealed, it’s being manifested through his son, through our Savior. Now there’s some interesting irony going on in this text that is not super familiar to us. But in the ancient world, they would have been familiar with the idea that Augustus was Savior, and by his appearing, he brought peace to the world. There’s inscriptions with this very phraseology on it. The prime inscription. You can go look it up.

P-R-I-E-N-E. Prime inscription. Go look it up. Talks about Augustus being the savior of the world. And that by his appearing, he has brought everything into harmony and peace. Right? This is the culture in which they lived and how the emperors were envisioned. And Paul’s saying, no, it’s Jesus Christ. He’s the one who does that. By his appearing, all things are being made right. And God is working according to the counsel of his will. His purposes are being fulfilled. His grace is being given, and it’s being given to us through Christ Jesus. And all of this was planned before the world began. And God delivers on his promises. So don’t be ashamed. Don’t be ashamed of the things that you believe in and the creator of the whole world.

Don’t be ashamed of that. Even when the world doesn’t accept it or doesn’t believe it, and they start thinking some other guy, by his appearing, brings peace and glory to the world. Where is Augustus now? He’s dead in the ground. And he is no longer accomplishing anything. Where is the eternal city of Rome today? Well, you can go over there and you can see the ruins and the rubble of the ancient city of Rome. You can go and you can see where the barbarians took out everything out of the Colosseum to use for their own purposes. And so what was once glorious and amazing and the statues that once stood there are all broken down and they are decayed and they no longer stand or exist.

So how did that do for these people who worship the emperor? Who looked down on the Christians and mocked at them, even blame them sometimes for things like earthquakes, natural disasters, or other problems that existed in society because they didn’t worship the emperor as part of the emperor cult, but they worshiped Jesus Christ. How did that all work out for them in the end? Who’s worshiping the emperor of Rome today?

No one. It was totally worthless. Just like all the idols that Isaiah talks about in his prophecy. How when it comes down to it, when they’re facing the problems of the world, they’re going to throw those idols away that they made with their own hands, and they’re going to do nothing for them. But Paul says, I know whom I’ve believed. And I am convinced that he’s able to guard, to keep until that day what has been entrusted to me. Now I said there’s a little nuance here. What you’re saying is that he’s able to guard what I have committed to him. The Greek there is very difficult. It could kind of go either way. I sort of go back and forth. Like I can see either direction with this.

Right? Like God has entrusted things to us, and there’s a sense in which maybe now Paul’s saying, now we entrust ourselves to him. Right? Like we give ourselves and we give our faithfulness, we give our loyalty, we give, instead of being afraid, we are not ashamed, we’re willing to suffer. And so we’re entrusting all of that to him. Right? We’ve committed that to him. Kind of like Jesus says, into your hand I’ve commit my spirit. So maybe in that sort of direction. Now, the other side of this, which is what kind of represented in the ESV, is that he’s able to guard or keep what has been entrusted to me, which is this idea. The things that I’m doing because he’s told me to, he’s going to deliver on them.

Right? They’re gonna be there. If I bring the tickets to the gate, they’re gonna let me in. It’s not because they’re not gonna deliver, but if I lose them on the way, or I don’t pay enough attention, or I don’t watch where they go, and then I don’t have them, I don’t get in. Right. God will deliver on his promises. There’s nothing to worry about on God’s side. And that’s why he goes on to say that we need to guard. We need to keep the treasure that’s been entrusted to us. To not let it go. To bear this testimony proudly, which I think maybe is a nice way to end this discussion in our modern world. We’re kind of working our way backwards, right? The importance of understanding that this is a treasure, and it’s a treasure that we have that is by the power of God, that God’s going to deliver, that we have nothing to worry about.

3. Proudly Bear Witness to the Testimony

We can be convinced that God’s going to keep this. And so we shouldn’t be ashamed. We have nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, we should proudly give testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. And what he has done in the world and what he’s doing in the world and what he will continue to do in the world. And it doesn’t matter at all what the world says or does or thinks. Bearing witness isn’t only done in sermons. Certainly, Timothy was going to do a lot of that. And Paul continues to talk about some of those things with him, that in his teaching and his preaching, he needed to be bold and he needed to speak the truth and not be swayed by the opinions of people in the world.

And so all of that certainly is relevant for Timothy. But bearing witness doesn’t just happen in preaching or teaching. It happens by following the standard of sound words. The ESV says the pattern, but the idea is the standard. It’s not just that you’re the one out doing the proclaiming or the preaching, but the standard is there and you’re following it, right? You’re together with it. That’s what a standard does. It sort of keeps everything together. We measure with standards, right? We kind of do it our own way in the United States and the rest of the world does it a different way, but we have a standard, at least, right? So we use a ruler or we use a measuring tape, and by that standard we figure things out.

And so Paul says, don’t be ashamed. Don’t be ashamed to bear witness of this reality, of this truth. Don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord. The word testimony and the word witness are the same. So bearing witness or testimony are the same thing, either way. Martua in Greek. It’s the same term. Just depends on how it falls in the sentence and the syntax and all of that. And so all he’s saying here is don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed of this truth, of this reality, of this treasure that you’ve been given. But in fact, actually proudly bear witness to this. Now, this is what the world does with sin all the time. Right? Proudly bearing out their sin and proclaiming the sin that they do in the world, about this thing that they’re so proud of, and how they’ve actually rebelled against God.

And they want to shame those who are following the will of God from speaking truth. Don’t buy into it. Proudly proclaim the message of God. Be bold. This is what Paul’s telling Timothy too. Be bold about your testimony, about bearing witness. Yes, you may suffer, but that’s the nature of how this works. This is the cruciform nature of what happens when you follow Jesus. He suffered for us, and so we suffer for him. And so, yes, the world may ostracize us, they may look down on us, they may mock us, they may say these people are shameful. All of those things might happen. But remember, it’s not about comfort and everything going right. No, this is about accomplishing God’s purpose through the grace that he has given us in Christ Jesus, a plan that existed before the ages began, which is now have been revealed through the appearing of our Savior.

And so he saved us and he called us not to comfort, not to ease. He didn’t call us to kind of go along with everything and make sure we stay out of the difficulties. No, he called us to holiness.

Conclusion

And all of this to bring glory to God the Father, the creator of everything that we see. The sustainer of the world, done through the word of his son, Jesus Christ. And so Paul doesn’t want Timothy to be ashamed. He doesn’t want us to be ashamed. He wants us to realize the treasure that we have in Jesus Christ. How valuable this is. And his power to bring all of this about, just as he’s done in the past, we can look at that to see he will continue this in the future. And in recognizing God’s power, that he is able, that we proudly proclaim what we believe in Jesus Christ. That’s what Paul wants Timothy to do. And those principles still continue for us today. It’s not changed.

We are God’s people, called to live in God’s ways, to live in holiness, and to proclaim that both by what we say and how we live in the world.

That he’s worth believing in. That he gives meaning and purpose to life. And that’s the case. You can come and give your life to him. You can be baptized into Jesus Christ. That is the idea of giving up the old man, getting rid of Adam, the man of sin, and putting on the man of righteousness, Jesus Christ, to live a new life. And it could be that you’ve already done that. But you realize you haven’t been living up to the standard. You haven’t been following this pattern of healthy words. You haven’t been focused on what God wants. Maybe you’ve been a little too focused on what the world says or your own desires. We struggle with that sometimes. But maybe now and right now is the time to make it right.

Can we help you? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?