We want to thank you for listening to this week's sermon from Harvest Bible Chapel, Kansas City. We pray that you will be encouraged and challenged by God's Word today. If you would like more information about Harvest, please visit our website at www.harvestkansascity.org. And so we're gonna be finishing out the book of 2 Timothy here today, looking at 2 Timothy 4, verses 9 through 22. And so you can go ahead and turn over there. Our ushers are gonna come down the aisle. They have Bibles if you wanna raise your hand if you don't have a Bible. It's on page 996 and 997. And we're gonna be looking at the culmination of partnership. So go ahead and throw up your hands if you'd like a Bible. We're gonna pray to get started here. So God, we thank you. just for your word, your word that is as ever inspired and amazing at the end of a book as it is in the beginning. And so God, we are excited about the journey that we have been taking through this book of 2 Timothy. I just pray that you would guide us here today as we examine the end of this book. and as we look at how we can apply it, Lord, and how you want to change us through it. So, God, we bless you on this day, and we just pray for Pastor Jeff as he's preaching up there in Davenport, and just pray that you be with him, that you speak through him, and just use him powerfully as well. So we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so we're gonna jump in to verse nine, and I'm gonna read it, and you're gonna be like, whoa, that might be your response. And it starts with this. Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm, and the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. 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 Anesphorus. Erastus remained to Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, and all of the brothers. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you. We don't need to preach that, right? You just know what is all going on, right? Yeah. The purpose of this passage is truly to find the name of our next child, I think, because we have a boy coming, so we could vote on that, Eubulus, Trophalus, whatever you want, Demas, Timothy, that works too. Good name, good solid name. So there's some good truth here in this passage. And so we're gonna dig into it. And what I love is that really this section is fully the inspired word of God. Just like John 3.16, just like 2 Timothy 3.16 talks about, this book, this part of this book is just as inspired as that. So the Lord has something for us in there. And so that's our goal here today is to dig that out and find out what it is. So first we see the blessing of faithfulness. That's our first point. You'll see the verses that correspond with that. They kind of jump around a little bit, because what we're going to do is we're going to run through the different faithful characters that we see within these 17 names. No joke. Well, 18, Count Timothy as well. 18 different names that we're going to kind of examine and look at. So yes, we're going to jump through there a little bit. Now if you've ever been to a play, I always find it an entertaining thing at the end of the play to see the different people that have been involved with it, right? You have the actors on stage who are, they're the ones that are vocal and they're out there and it's all good, but you have those background people, right? You have people that didn't have any lines in the play, maybe they were just kind of background singers or helpers, people that were in the band, people that ran the lights, they ran the sound, maybe they made the costumes or the set. But they're in the background, right? Now would the play happen if you didn't have those people? No. You would just have a bunch of people standing on stage just talking in the dark, right? It wouldn't happen. So what we have here is truly, it's Paul's network. It's really a laundry list of all the people that have been involved with Paul's ministry for all these many years. So there's a lot, a lot of great people represented within here. And as he ends his life and his ministry, it's truly, it's not tasks that are on Paul's mind. That's not what's on his mind. You see, these are kind of his final thoughts in a lot of ways. And who comes to his mind? People. People come to his mind. People that he cares about greatly. People that have been so integral to what he's done in ministry and to fulfilling his mission. See, we all have a ministry network. People that we co-labor with. That's what we have in our student ministry. We lock arms. We pour out into the students together. Our elders do that. Our deacons do that. We labor together. And that's what Paul has here as well. See, ministry doesn't happen on an island. It's a team activity, for real. You can't just exist by yourself. So write down 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 30. You can go back and look at those later. 1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 30. See, we have all kinds of people with all different gifting, with all different temperaments, with all different talents, with all different treasure, with all different passion, with all different relational abilities, with all different knowledge, coming together for the accomplishing of the mission. And that's what's going on here. So let's take a look at some of them. The first is, he's the person that the letter was written to, right? Timothy, he's part of the faithfully known. So we have the faithfully known, we have the faithfully unknown. Those are two different groups that you'll hear me say a couple different times. Timothy is faithfully known. Look at verse nine. It says, do your best to come to me soon. He uses the word spadauso, which means to be eager, to be zealous, to come to me, to be passionate about getting your butt to me, Timothy, please. Move, shake your tail feather, and get over to me, because you need to come quickly. He says it twice within these verses. He says it a little bit later as well. Timothy needs to come quickly because not only is Paul condemned to die, but winter is coming soon as well. And see, during this time period, when winter would come, travel via boat would be impossible. It was a very dangerous thing. So he needs to come fast, he needs to come quickly. We could read Paul's passion so evidently throughout the entire book of 1 and 2 Timothy. He calls him a beloved son in 2 Timothy 2.1. And also in 1 Timothy 1.4, he says, as I remember you with tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. There's a longing and a closeness in this relationship. It's a very important thing for Paul. He wants to see his son one final time. There's also a sense here that Paul is passing the baton on to Timothy as well. Because he's the one that's gonna take over the work that Paul has been doing. So he, I think in many ways, wants to bless him. To kind of grab him by the face and be like, I love you, I care for you, I believe in you, you can do it. You know, blessing is something that's really an important thing throughout scripture. We see Esau just longing for a blessing from his father Isaac. He just wants that blessing, and I think Paul is longing to give that to Timothy as well. One of my favorite messages that I've ever heard preached, truly, was from Sal, one of our elders, if you don't know. It was when we were in Romania. And so, he was talking about multiplication, multiplication of ministry. And so he was going through much of 1 Timothy and much of 2 Timothy while he was doing that. And one thing I love about Sal is just his passion that comes through. You guys probably could see that. But he asked this question that's really kind of permeated in my mind. And this is the question, who is your Timothy? Who is your Timothy? Who is the person that you are pouring your heart, your soul, your passion, your knowledge, your desire into? Who is that for you? See, we all need to have a Timothy. We all need to have a person. that we are pouring into in that way. And so what is our mission here at Harvest? Let me know it. Lost people, save people, I don't even know it. Save people, mature people to the glory of God, right? So what one word sums up that mission? Discipleship, right? I hear you saying it. Discipleship sums up that process. So who is your Timothy and also who is your Paul? Who's the person that is pouring into you in that way? It's somebody that you need to seek out. I think a lot of times we kind of get in this mindset where you're like, man, I am just, I'm so cool. Someone should want to disciple me. Like they should do that. Like they should pursue me in that way, right? It doesn't work out that way necessarily. People are busy. They're busy. And so we need to pursue them and say, hey, I see this in you. and I want that. So would you please take me under your wing, show me, show me the way and help me. So next we see a faithfully unknown person and that's Crescens, 2 Timothy 4.10b. He says Crescens has gone to Galatia and truly we don't know anything about Crescens besides that he has a cool name. but he was a faithful laborer who assisted Paul. And we're just, we assume that he had missionary work in that place when he goes to Galatia to strengthen the church there. But how many people in our church are so similar to Crescent's? Working behind the scenes, strengthening the church, the people that run sound, the people that run lights, your ushers, your greeters, your set up and tear down team, the people who work on videos like the one that we just watched. It takes hours of work to do that, right? There's all kinds of people within our church that are crescents, that are there behind the scenes, but we need more. We need more people that will come alongside and raise their hand and say, yes, I will serve, I will join in. And you'll have an opportunity to get set up to start serving here in the next couple of weeks. We're gonna do a ministry fair, so you'll have an opportunity to get signed up for that. So don't hesitate to lock arms in service with us. So next, Paul mentions a person who is also faithfully known, and that's Titus. Titus is mentioned. Titus had been with Paul at Nicopolis. That was where he met him. And he had been summoned to Rome. And really in the book of Titus is where we get to know who Titus is and kind of get to know his character a little bit. But he was an incredible fixer of problems. That's who Titus was. He would come alongside churches that were getting started and he would build them up. He would get them going and he would strengthen them. So really how it would work is that Paul would go into a place and he'd bring like the gospel hammer, just like break everything apart. And then Titus would come along and he would patch it back together and kind of create a church, help form a church out of that place. He's like super glue in a lot of ways. He had an ability to mediate tough situations. He would put out fires, if you will. A few years ago, we had a group come from Chicago to our harvest and kind of evaluate what we're doing. So like talk to the different ministry leaders, talk about kind of the programs and the things that we were doing, evaluate the culture of our staff. And it was really a neat process because we really learned kind of who we are, how we could change, what we can do differently. And that's really who, that's in a lot of ways what Titus would be doing nowadays. He'd be a consultant to help churches grow and be strengthened. The body of Christ has to have people like Titus. Next we see another faithfully known companion of Paul, and that's Luke. That's Luke. We see that in verse 11, he says, Luke alone is with me. Many commentators believe that Luke penned 2 Timothy, and so really, there's a sense of Luke's own loneliness, and he's with Paul, he's lonely with him here. And there's really one word that best describes Luke, and that's the word loyal. Just think, when you think Luke, think loyal. Loyal Luke, he is there. He is always with Paul. He's the beloved physician he's called in Colossians 4.14. He's there alongside him. And if there's ever a time that Paul needed a physician and also a friend, it was in the Mamertine prison, which is where Paul was. It was a brutal place, brutal. 20 to 30 men locked up in a prison cell together, no heat, no air conditioning, no plumbing system whatsoever. In fact, the sewage from Rome would be running outside this door and it would just leak into the prison cell. So you can imagine how terrible these conditions were, and that's the place that Paul found himself with Luke. He was a wonderful traveling companion. He was so loyal. We see them together in Acts 16 and also in Acts 20. They travel together. Paul needed a doctor and a friend, and Luke was both. Next we see Mark. Mark is faithfully known as well, it says in verse 11b, get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. He's Barnabas's cousin, we first meet him in Acts chapter 12, verse 12, write that down. We see him kind of come to the forefront here. So this is the time where Peter, he gets let go from prison in a miraculous way. So he ends up over at this person's house, right? And he's knocking on the door. And this is when Rhoda, crazy girl Rhoda, she keeps answering the door and saying, oh, it's Peter. And then she slams the door and she runs away and goes and tells everybody, hey, Peter's at the gate. And they're like, no, you're crazy. Get out of here. And then she goes back. It happens a couple of times. It's kind of funny. It's like, Rhoda, come on, open the door and let him in. So that's where we meet him first. So Mark is taken on his first missionary journey with Paul, and it doesn't go so well. He deserts Paul. He leaves and goes back to Jerusalem. And we don't know the reason for that, we just know that he did. So what happens in response is that there's a consequence, is that Paul does not want to take Mark on his second missionary journey. You know, and Barnabas, being loyal to his cousin, says, hey, you know, I wanna take him with, I wanna take him with. But they don't want to, Paul doesn't want to, and so there's a dispute, and then a sharp disagreement is what it says, and they part ways, and they go different directions. But what a different situation this is now. The gospel is so evident in this part here, because Mark has been restored. Isn't that awesome? He's been restored. What an amazing transformation. Paul says about Mark, he says, he is very useful for my ministry. Very useful for my ministry. And I'll tell you, I could so relate to Mark. I just can't. Because I'm a person who was wayward. I was a believer, but I was wayward. Almost messing things up, and I really felt like I was disqualified from ministry. That's how I felt in my own heart. But that's not a true statement, right? Lord has blessed me and we get second chances. That's the beauty of the gospel. Mark has done some major maturing. He's been with Paul in prison. We see that in Colossians 4 that Mark is there with Paul. So a lot has changed over this time period. He is enduring suffering and a fan of faith has been flamed to full with Mark. So where would it be in his commentary? He says, John Mark is a vivid example of a young man who failed in his first assignment, but finally made good. Isn't that great? I love the definition of the word very useful. It just means easily used. Some of you are easily used as far as in ministry. You're available, you're there. We call them something in particular here. We call them fast leaders. Not like speedy, you know, because most of us are not speedy, because we're just not. But fast, meaning faithful, available, submissive, and teachable. That's what leaders should be. Faithful, available, submissive, and teachable. Does that describe you? Next, we have another faithfully known companion that's Tychicus. It says that he's been sent to Ephesus. He's been sent there for a designated purpose. He has a goal. He's going there for something in particular. And in this case, he's going to relieve Timothy of his church leading responsibilities so that Timothy can come and see Paul. Tychicus has done this before. He's done it with Titus. He's a person that really, he fits in. He can come and he can take over the work. He can carry on the work. He's a reliever in essence. But he's a reliever who actually can close the game, right? Don't we kind of miss that in Kansas City? We do, straight up. In both places, he's described as a dear brother, a faithful servant of the Lord. You know what's so cool about Tychicus 2 is that he is the bearer, meaning he carries the books of Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Timothy to those places. Think about that. These letters get penned, and they get sealed up, and then he takes them. Ephesians, like Ephesians he's carrying. It's not just like a piece of paper written from me or something. And he carries it to the place where it's to go. What a cool task that is, right? Sign me up. I think he had a protected journey, so we have those books. It's a good thing. He was a man who was very much like Silly Putty, kind of filling in the gaps. So then we see how Paul, he goes back to speaking to Timothy. He says, when you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas and also the books and the parchments. Really, Paul is trying to get some physical and some mental help as far as in this place. The cloak, it's like a poncho. It goes over your head and it would keep him warm in that cold prison. And he also wants some parchments and some books and things that he could study and he could write on. So he wants, the man Carpus really, well who he is, he's just somebody who basically let Paul stay with him. He's kind of like the McCowns who are on the screen. They let basically everybody stay with them who comes to visit. It's just the way it is. You should tell him I told you that, yeah. Like I need a place to stay. So next we see another faithfully known companion here. We have Prisca and Achilla in verse 19 if you want to jump down there. Prisca and Achilla in the household of Anesophorus. I'm not gonna get into the household of Anessa Forrest much because Kurt did that a few weeks ago. He talked about them quite a bit when we went through chapter one, verses 16 and 17. But Prisca and Achilla, it's Priscilla and Achilla, it's a shortened name. They're very prominent in Paul's life. They are tent makers, they're wealthy. They've been helpful to him, they've let him stay with them. They've traveled around with him. They've been a financial support to him. They've suffered for him. They're an amazing example of a couple that's being used by the Lord for ministry. Like they're willing, they're there together, they're partners together, and they're working with Paul and whoever. It's an awesome thing. The same is true for Nesephorus. He's a faithful, faithful guy. So next we have some faithfully unknown people. We have Erastus, in 20, who remained at Corinth, and Trophimus, and then we have Eubulus having greetings sent to him, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brothers. Now we know very little of these people, but the point here is that they're faithful people. They are part of Paul's network. They're part of his ministry. It's the beauty of the body. I love this because it's, we have Timothy's here at harvest. We have Titus's here at harvest. We have Mark's here at harvest. We have all kinds of people that really fit these roles and these descriptions. That's what the body of Christ is. Again, all kinds of people with different gifting, temperament, talents, treasures, passion, relational abilities, knowledge, all coming together for what? The mission. Coming together for the mission. But there's another group represented here too, throughout this passage, and they are ones who bring difficulty. And they are the faithless. That point is the difficulty of faithlessness. Verses 10a, 14 to 16. So two primary offenders here that are mentioned among the faithless, and also a group of people as well. The first that we're gonna talk about is Demas. Verse 10 says, for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Now Demas didn't just take off for like a weekend with the boys, you know, kind of thing. No, he's gone. He is deserted, Paul. He has left him. And this is truly, especially a painful thing for Paul because of the relationship that they had. He was with him in prison. He was with him along the way with his ministry, with Paul's ministry. He betrayed him and he left him. He's mentioned Colossians 4.14 in prison with Luke and with Paul. He was right there when miracles happened, when the gospel was preached, when people were transformed, when churches were built, but he fell away, he deserted them. So what happened to Demas? What happened to him? Well, it tells us, it says that he was in love with this present world. In love with this present world. This is a key phrase for us to drill down on. Because something within Demas' world, some kind of a distraction or a thing has caused him to love the world more than Christ. And the word really warns us against this. James 4.4, if you wanna write down the reference, I'll read it, James 4.4. It says, you adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Those are strong words, right? But here's some stronger ones. 1 John 2, 15 through 17. That says, do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world. So I must ask you, where are you in love with the world? Where are you in love with the things of the world? See, Johnson County, naturally, is a place that breeds love for this world. Nice homes. good schools, nice retirement accounts, nice, comfortable, safe Christianity. No matter how mature you think that you are, the love of the world and the things of the world is always a temptation. I love what Paul Tripp says, he says, if you are not requiring yourself to get your deepest sense of well-being vertically, you will shop for it horizontally, and you will always come up empty. So where are you in love with the world? There's a sense that we're all teetering on the edge of a cliff, right? Like about to fall off, we have to constantly be on guard. Demas was teetering on that cliff. So let me identify three different worldly loves from this first John passage. I would encourage you to write these down. So three worldly loves. The first is this, the desires of the flesh. This is a physical gratification. It could be sexual, it could be food-related. It's a physical gratification. And really, those things are not necessarily bad, right? Food's not bad, sex is not bad. I can say that up here on the stage, right? But when we idolize those things, when they become greater than the Lord in our life, that's when the issue comes in. So you'll see how much you rely upon those physical things when you deny them, right? When you start to starve the flesh, That's when it gets difficult. I'm constantly starving my flesh of deep dish pizza. It's very difficult for me. Not so much, but. So maybe it was the desire of the flesh for Demas. Maybe it was the desire of the eyes. What the desire of the eyes is, whereas the flesh is physical, the eyes is more It's more in your mind, in literally your eyes. It's the things that you see, the things that you desire. It's coveting, saying, I want this. It's much like how David looked down on Bathsheba and said, I want that. Next we have the pride in possession. This is someone who finds their glory in what they have. They seek to show off who they are. I was at the airport this last week, and there was a guy there, I was going through the security check-in, and there was a guy there who, he had it going on, man. He had some swag, for real. He had a light blue, like baby blue colored hat, a matching shirt, with like gold buttons going down, light blue pants to match it, and he had the same colored shoes on with gold tips on the end. Pretty fly, right? I'm like, that dude had some swag, for real, okay? But I'm like, why? What is the purpose of the things that we have or the way that we look? Is it to show off in some way? Simply put, our desires, ultimately, for Christ, must overshadow every other thing. That's what must happen. But for Demas, it just simply didn't, unfortunately. Next, we have an example of faithless difficulty in Alexander the Coppersmith. Verse 14 says, Alexander the Coppersmith did me great harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. There's an Alexander reference in 1 Timothy 1.20. He's considered a blasphemer. Some commentators think that Alexander was an informer that actually caused Paul to get arrested. We don't know for sure, we don't know who he was, but we do know, what we do know, is that he lived in opposition to the gospel. He was directly opposed to the message of Christ and the message of the gospel. We are taught to beware of him, to guard, to watch, to keep away from. See, there's always opposition to faithful proclamation of the gospel. There just is. I remember when we were moving here almost five years ago, I had an estranged family member who has since cut off ties with the family and really has only been in contact for about a year in the last 20. And he was opposed to Christianity. He was. He told me when we moved here, he said, good luck peddling the business of God. I was like, thanks for the encouragement. So not so much, right? But he lived in opposition to the gospel. We are to cast our pearls, cast our faith before those that are right, that are ready. Next, we see an anonymous group of deserters in verse 16. It says, at my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. One might say that this is Paul's Gethsemane. He's alone. He's deserted. But the amazing thing about this is that he has hope in Christ. He has hope in Christ. He has the hope of Christ. That's our last point. So let's look a little bit at what the scene was like for Paul when he was alone in this place. when he was on trial actually. So basically there was a, if you could picture it, there was basically like a, there was a head kind of table there, right? And you have the people that would decide upon the sentence of the person giving their defense. Along the sides, along this table, there are prominent wealthy people that just want to be there to watch. And then above that and around that were just interested spectators. Just people that wanted to be there just to see what the spectacle was all about. So as Paul stands to defend himself, he truly has no advocate. He stands by himself to defend. No one to come alongside him. He's alone in front of this mass of hostile people. But is he really alone? No. No, he's not alone. There is hope. Look at verse 17. He says, 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 kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever, amen. Great words. He said that he was strengthened, it's the word in dynamo, which has the root word in Greek for dynamite, basically. So he was infused with power. He was given this strength in his inner soul through the Holy Spirit to be able to proclaim this truth. He wasn't gonna be lifting any cars off of anybody, anything like that. No, this is power to proclaim the word of God. But why, why was he truly empowered? Well, we see there's a word that our pastor really, really likes and it's called Hinnah, Hinnah, right? And that's the so that word. So we see it here, 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. Now that is the culmination, right? That is an ending point. That was his life's mission, was to proclaim the message to the Gentiles, and he has done it. This is the fight that Paul has fought. This is the race that he has completed. And now, now he's ready to go home. He can go home now. The whole thought here just launches Paul into spontaneous praise, right? So he's talking, he's talking about what the Lord's gonna rescue me, all this stuff, and then he's just, to him be glory forever and ever, amen. He just spontaneously worships, and I love that. All the pain, all the stink of that cell, all the despair, all the desertion, all the evil desires, the thorn that was in his flesh that was a constant struggle will be no more. He'll go home to his heavenly home to be with Christ. And we have that same hope. The hope that we have in Christ empowers us in the same way to proclaim him. And he is worth it. He is worth it. Worth pouring our lives out for, worth following no matter What, but do you believe that? Do you believe that? Go ahead and bow your heads. I said a lot of words, probably too many, but I just want you to think, personally reflect on a couple questions that I have for you. And that's this, are you a partner in our church? Are you committed to the work here? Are you in fellowship here? Or do you sneak out when we bow our heads? Do you avoid meeting people? Are you known? Do people really know you? Join a small group. You have a direct application to be known right after the service. Go there immediately. You need people to challenge you. We need each other to finish the mission. God, I thank you that you are so faithful, that you have met us through the study of 2 Timothy, That we are in this together, that we are partners in ministry. God, I pray that you would help us all to see our role in that. To not miss the part that we play. To not shove it off on somebody else and say, that's their job, but Lord, that we would take up the call to serve. To be faithful people, to take on the example of Titus and Mark. and Timothy, and Crescens, and Eutychus, and all the faithful unknown who have gone before us to complete your mission. God, may we be about discipleship. I pray that you would change us where we need to be changed. May we have