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[0:00] I invite you to turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 2. Paul writes this letter to his beloved son, Timothy, the last days of his life.

[0:14] I begin reading in verse 1, 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 1. Paul writes, You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men.

[0:37] Entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

[0:50] No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

[1:04] Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound.

[1:27] Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

[1:41] Dear Father, as we come together this morning, we open your word and we ask you to speak to us through your word. Pray that by your spirit you would apply this passage to each one of our hearts.

[1:55] And I pray that you would find our hearts willing and obedient. And you'd speak to each one of us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. As a missionary, you end up reading a lot of books about missions, about strategy, about church planning, about church growth.

[2:15] There's a lot of books on those subjects. Some of them are actually worth reading. A lot of them aren't. The ones that aren't worth reading are generally books that take most of their ideas from either marketing or sociology or maybe psychology.

[2:33] And I'm not saying that there's nothing in those fields of study that might be relevant to the task. There's certainly principles, tips, different things that might be useful that we could derive from sociology, that we could derive from marketing.

[2:49] I'm not saying that there's nothing in those things. But the ones that, as the years go along, the ones you go back to, the ones that really are fruitful, are the ones that really look at Scripture and try to derive principles of church planning, of church growth, of missions from Scripture itself.

[3:05] When you look at the Scriptures and you look for principles of church growth, of missions, of how to plant churches, how to see the gospel move forward, you look, of course, obviously you have to look closely at the life of Paul.

[3:18] And it really comes down to just a handful of concepts, a handful of main ideas. And I think one of the most important ones is what we find right here in this passage. I think if you wanted to say, what is Paul's missionary method, one answer might be Paul's missionary method is to find faithful men, train those faithful men, and have them sent out to carry the gospel to other places.

[3:41] Faithful men who transmit the gospel to another generation, one generation after the other. Paul's thinking about this. I think if you look at all of his writings, especially his pastoral epistles, we see that this is always kind of something that's in the back of his mind, at least.

[3:57] When he talks about the requirements of what it takes to be an elder, what it takes to be a deacon, he's thinking about the character of the men that are involved, what kind of men need to be selected for these tasks.

[4:09] And here he writes this last letter to his son in the faith, to Timothy, who in some ways is going to be the one who carries on with his ministry. He wants to lay down this principle.

[4:22] And we can see something on his mind, it's even in the first chapter. He's thinking about this idea of character and of the gospel committed to people of character. In the first chapter, in verse 3, we see he's thinking about Timothy and his family and how Timothy came to faith.

[4:40] It says, I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see that I may be filled with joy.

[4:54] Paul thought about Timothy and he remembered what kind of person he was. He remembered the sincerity of his faith. It was a sincere faith that drove Timothy to tears at times.

[5:05] He goes, I long to see you. And he says, I'm reminded of your sincere faith. Then he goes on and says, A faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well.

[5:21] He'd come across Timothy. You remember in other parts it talks about how he discovered Timothy. And Timothy had a good reputation among the brethren. And the brethren said, this is a young man who is a man of character and has a heart for the gospel.

[5:35] He's someone you should look at. But Timothy wasn't just a young man that sprang out of nothing. He was the product of two generations of godly women. His grandmother and his mother who were both examples of sincere faith.

[5:48] And that sincere faith was transmitted to Timothy. He was a faithful man. Go down to the end of the chapter. We see that he's still thinking in these terms.

[6:01] In verse 15 he says, You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are philegious and hermogeny.

[6:11] So here he's going to give us some negative examples and some positive examples. There's some people who had turned away from him. This wasn't a new thing. We know that at different times people turned away from Paul.

[6:23] He talks about it in Philippians. He talks about people who preached the gospel out of rivalry. Paul was at one time a superstar among the early church.

[6:34] And his star was in the ascendant. And so there were people who thought, You know, if we can just be associated with Paul, if we can hitch ourselves to him, we can ride his success. But there came a point in which, just like in Jesus' ministry, there began to be opposition.

[6:48] And all of a sudden Paul wasn't the latest, coolest, newest thing. And so there were some people who thought, You know what? Now by kind of being the resistance, by being against Paul, we'll actually enhance our own position.

[6:59] Maybe we can even kind of move in on his territory. We can take over some of what he's established. We'll see our own prestige grow, where before we were trying to get close to him, cozy up to him because we thought it would do us good.

[7:11] Now we're going to stand against him. And Paul says, You know what? These people, they preach the gospel. They preach it from wrong motivations. But praise God, at least the gospel is being preached.

[7:22] But here it's people who have turned completely against him. He says, You are aware that all those who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are philegious and homogenies. In other words, these are not faithful men.

[7:33] May the Lord grant mercy to the household. And here's a faithful man. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.

[7:46] But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.

[7:56] So here's a brother who, rather than turn away from Paul, in fact, when Paul is going through his time of greatest need, when really his ministry is coming to an end, it's over.

[8:09] He's no longer the successful Paul of other years. He still comes to minister to Paul. He still identifies himself with Paul and with his mission and with the gospel that Paul preached.

[8:23] Think about this passage a little bit. What he says, he says, This brother of Onesiphorus refreshed me. And he says he was not ashamed of my chains. We understand the depth of that, the courage that was involved in that one.

[8:36] Just think a little bit. He says, When he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. Paul's in jail in Rome. This guy comes to Rome and he's saying, Okay, I'm looking for this Jewish guy.

[8:50] And he preaches a message about Jesus who had been crucified, executed by the Romans. And now I know he's in jail. So you're walking into the heart of the empire and you're saying, I'm looking for this prisoner.

[9:05] This guy who's in jail. He's an enemy of the state. He's my friend. Can you tell me where Paul is? He arrived in Rome.

[9:18] He searched for me earnestly and found me. So Paul's thinking about the difference between faithful men and unfaithful men. And he's saying it all depends on faithful men.

[9:32] Now, in case we begin to think that this idea of being a faithful man is just a characteristic that we gin up on our own.

[9:42] That it's just, I'm a tough guy. I'm a faithful guy. I have some personal quality of my own. Paul makes it clear that that's not the case.

[9:56] What does it take to be a faithful man? Paul says in verse 1 of chapter 2, he says, To be a faithful man, you have to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

[10:19] We can't be faithful unless we're strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, if we do it in our own strength, we will not be faithful men. But if we do it in the strength that is in the grace of Christ Jesus, we can be faithful men.

[10:34] And it's really a strange statement. Be strengthened is an imperative. You must be, you're commanded to be strengthened. But he doesn't say be strong. He says be strengthened.

[10:46] Be strengthened by what? The grace. Grace is something that's outside of us. We're being commanded to be strengthened by something that's external to us. It's not us.

[10:57] It's not be strong in your own willpower. Be strong in your own personal strength. It's be strengthened in something which is really beyond your control. So we're being commanded to do something that we really can't do.

[11:12] And yet we must do. Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Paul demands of Timothy, demands of these faithful men, he demands ultimately of us, that we have this kind of active passivity or this passive activism.

[11:36] I'm not sure how to explain it. Paul describes this in many places. He that began a good work in you will complete it.

[11:49] And yet further on in that book, he talks about how we are supposed to be faithful. He talks about this in relationship to himself. We see the whole contradictory nature of it in 1 Corinthians 15, where he describes his own ministry.

[12:05] 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in around verse 10. We'll go back to verse 7.

[12:16] He says, Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all is to one untimely born he appeared to me. So Paul, first of all, we get an idea of what Paul thought of himself.

[12:27] He says, I am an apostle, but I am as one who is born out of time. I'm the last of the apostles. And in some ways, I almost feel like I'm not a legitimate apostle, but I am. Then he appeared to James, all the apostles.

[12:40] Last of all is to one untimely born he appeared also to me. He says, For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. So before I say the rest of what I'm going to say, I want you to know what I think of myself, what my self-image is.

[12:54] I'm the least of the apostles. I was born out of time. I don't deserve to be an apostle because I was a persecutor of the church. So I don't have some high opinion of myself.

[13:10] But by the grace of God, and notice that he comes back to that word grace more than once. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

[13:26] On the contrary, it worked harder. I worked harder than any of them. He said, I worked harder than any of them. Who worked? Paul worked. Paul traveled more miles.

[13:36] He preached more messages. He made more disciples. He started more churches. He went to more countries. His ministry grew and grew and grew. And he said, And yet at the same time, it wasn't me.

[13:54] By the grace of God, I am what I am. His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me, whether then it was I or they.

[14:08] So we preach, and so you believed. Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

[14:18] A faithful man, and by extension the faithful woman, first of all understands that their faithfulness is not dependent on some personal quality of their own, but on the grace that comes from Christ.

[14:34] In the next section, Paul gives three examples, three analogies, to kind of give Timothy and give us an idea of what a faithful man looks like.

[14:48] He gives us three examples, and I think we could probably derive from these examples a number of qualities or characteristics, but we'll just look at four. Four qualities from three examples.

[15:00] The first example is the example of a soldier. The next example is the example of an athlete. And the final example is the example of a farmer. He says, no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuit since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

[15:21] From this, I think we can get two qualities, two characteristics. First of all, the faithful man is mission-focused or mission-driven, and he is long-suffering.

[15:34] He has a clear view of what the mission is and what is called for to accomplish the mission, and he's willing to make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill the mission.

[15:45] When I think about this passage, this particular verse, I always think of my brother. My brother Dan is 16 months younger than I am. He just got out of the Marine Corps about two years ago.

[15:57] He's suffering now from PTSD, and he's got a lot of physical issues, but he went into the Marine Corps in the early 80s, and when he got out, he was a master gunny sergeant.

[16:11] He'd seen action in every single one of the major actions that the United States had been in during that entire period. When he first went into the Marine Corps, he was with a weapons company, and he was with a mortar platoon, and he told me that his job was to carry the base plate on the mortar that they were using at that time.

[16:34] He said the base plate on that mortar weighed 80 pounds. You stop and think about that. Not only did he have to carry that base plate, but he had to carry his pack, and he had to carry his own weapon.

[16:47] And so you're in some place like Iraq, or maybe in Afghanistan at over 12,000 feet, 15,000 feet, and your job is to carry an 80-pound base plate all day long. I could pick up 80 pounds.

[17:03] I could maybe make it to the back door. I couldn't carry it all day long, much less carry my pack and my rifle all day long.

[17:16] When your job is to carry an 80-pound base plate all day long, then you start thinking about what's in your pack. When you're back at base, when you're in your tent, maybe you have a big screen TV, maybe you've got a PlayStation, maybe you've got something for music, you might have a lot of stuff there.

[17:36] But that stuff, when it's time to go in the field, when it's time to go out on a mission, you're going to measure every pound of stuff that you're carrying. And you're only going to take those things that are related to the mission itself.

[17:54] In Argentina, for those that were in the first hour, we talked about a young man that's preaching now. God's doing some wonderful things through him.

[18:04] His name is Manuel Carbonell. He last year graduated from Westminster Seminary. He'd been in our church for a number of years. He was a medical student.

[18:17] He became a doctor. He became a surgeon. And just before he, when he graduated from medical school, he graduated at the very top of his class.

[18:28] And so he was offered a scholarship to do postgraduate studies in France. And so it was something through the French consulate, and it was an amazing opportunity. And I just thought, well, Manuel's going to move to France.

[18:40] Good for him. I was praying that God would guide him in that and use that. But he came to me and says, you know what, I've got this opportunity to go to France, but I really feel that what God wants me to do is to prepare to be a pastor instead.

[18:53] And so he said, Sam, would you prepare me? Would you teach me? And we had the seminary going at that time, but what he wanted to do was sit down in my office and day by day go through the books and study. So what he wanted was for me just to prepare him to be a pastor.

[19:06] So he was willing to give up France, prestige, money, the whole thing to learn to be a pastor. It was only after he made the decision that that's what he was going to do that doors opened up and he got a scholarship.

[19:17] To go to Westminster Seminary and thankfully he was able to go up there in California and he was able to complete his degree. Now he's back and the Lord is blessing his ministry in the church there in Cordoba.

[19:29] You might ask, how does somebody make that decision? I'm going to give up a prestigious job, the opportunity to study in France, et cetera, everything that that implies. How do they reach that point where they say, that's not what I want to do?

[19:41] They give it all up. And to understand that, you'd have to understand the fact that Manuel was discipled to a great degree by another man in our church, a guy named Marcelo Brondo.

[19:53] For those of you who watched the video, Marcelo is now the guy who started the work up in Cachi in northern Argentina. But Marcelo had come to us when the church had first started. And I was telling your pastor last night the story of Marcelo.

[20:06] He was a Pentecostal pastor. He had come to Christ. He was converted in a Pentecostal church. He's a big, tall, handsome kind of movie star looking guy. And the kind of guy you look at him and think, yeah, he ought to be in charge.

[20:21] And so he'd been a Christian for all of six weeks. And they said, do you want to pastor the church? So all of a sudden, he's a pastor of this Pentecostal church. So he was pastor for about a year and trying to preach, trying to figure it out.

[20:33] And he realized, I have no idea what I'm doing. But at the same time, he also understood that this really was what God wanted for him. And so he started looking for a church that taught the Bible.

[20:45] He'd heard us on the radio. And he came and heard us speak a couple times. And he came to me and said, I'm resigning my church. And I would like, if you would, I would like you to train me.

[20:56] And so he's willing to step down and just start from zero. And he said, I would like to study full time. And if I can help you in anything, whatever, that's what I want to do. I said, well, there's no way we can pay you.

[21:08] The church was very small at that time. We were just starting out. And I said, there's no way we can pay you. He says, it doesn't matter. He says, I have a grocery store. And I'm going to sell it. And he sold his grocery store.

[21:19] And he and his wife, for four years, lived off the proceeds of the sale of the grocery store. And about the time the money ran out, the church had grown to the point where we could finally put him on.

[21:31] And we put him on full time. This is the guy who had discipled Manuel. A faithful man disciples another faithful man.

[21:45] Generation to generation. Generation to generation. The next example is of an athlete. Paul says, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

[22:05] I've never been a Marine, but I was kind of an athlete for a while. I played a lot of soccer when I was younger. I got to play high school football in the 11th grade. And I remember this was a little school in Texas.

[22:19] I couldn't have made it on a big school team. But I made it on that little school team. And I remember being out in West Texas in the middle of August and running laps and laps and laps under the West Texas sun until the coach said the idea was like, I'll make them all throw up and we'll see who quits.

[22:36] And I stuck it out and I made the team. When you're an athlete, you understand that there's rules and there's discipline.

[22:48] It's not just on the field. If you're on the field, depending on the sport, there's rules. You can't hit playing soccer. You can't hit people with an elbow. That's a very effective move.

[23:00] There's a lot of things that you can't do that you're not allowed to do. But it's more than that. It's not just the discipline. It's not just learning to play as a team player. It's not just learning the rules of the game.

[23:11] There's way beyond that. If you're going to be a professional athlete, it involves every part of your life. It affects when you go to bed, what you eat, every meal that you have.

[23:21] Everything gets shaped by this discipline that goes into being the best possible athlete. Again, you're focused on a mission. The athlete is disciplined.

[23:36] So we've got two characteristics, three now. The faithful man is long-suffering. He's focused and he's disciplined. And he's willing, because he's disciplined, he's willing to follow a process.

[23:47] We've got a young man in our church who also wants to be prepared for ministry. I think he's 21 now. He's been in our church now for a number of years. When he came to us, he had come to Christ.

[24:00] But his story was quite a story. He'd lived in a very poor neighborhood. He said that from the time he was a young teenager, he always carried a pistol in his pocket.

[24:13] He was involved with a really rough crowd. He used to hold people up on the street. He used to break into houses. Did all this sort of thing. When he was about 15 or 16, he said he reached a point where he was just so sick of everything.

[24:26] He just reached a point, he went into his bedroom, and he took that gun out and put it to his temple and pulled the trigger. And it didn't fire. And so he threw himself on the floor, and he called out.

[24:37] He said, God, if you really exist, help me. God usually answers that prayer. God began to work in his life. He began to look for a church, kind of a process.

[24:50] But he found our church. And he came to us, and he was so passionate about learning the Word of God, about studying. And he said, I want to be a pastor. I said, well, we need to talk.

[25:01] I saw him reading a fat book one day, and I said, what's that book you're reading? And he was reading Jonathan Edwards. I thought, wow, this kid's reading Jonathan Edwards. And so we got together, and he said, I want to be a student in the seminary.

[25:13] And so we got to talking, and I found out that he hadn't finished grade school. He'd gone as far as the third grade. And I said, okay, first you're going to do grade school. And he couldn't understand that.

[25:24] He said, why in the world? He says, he had this urgency. My friends need to hear the gospel. We can tell them you don't need a seminary degree to tell them the gospel. But I need to learn to preach.

[25:35] And I said, well, that's probably true. But one thing at a time. There's a process. There's a discipline that you need to come under. And the first thing you're going to do is go do grade school.

[25:46] And he really didn't like that, but he did it. He went to night school. And he finished grade school. And I said, okay, now we're going to do high school. And so now he's working on high school. And he was doing really well until he hit algebra.

[25:59] And I said, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that. I was terrible at algebra. And thankfully there's people in the church that are helping him. And just before we came up in November, I met with him.

[26:12] And I said, how's the studies going? He said, oh, they're going. And I said, well, you stay on it. And I want you to be close to finishing when I get back. It's a process.

[26:26] Discipline. Discipline. The well-trained athlete understands this. The last example is of a farmer.

[26:39] He says, it is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. And in this I see perseverance, the importance of perseverance. I don't know much about farming.

[26:51] We had a guy in our church that was a farmer, owned some property, and used to grow soybeans. And when he first came to Christ, he would come and we would have small groups. And we learned a little bit about farming just listening to his prayer requests.

[27:05] It was, pray because it's raining and we've got to get stuff planted. And pray because we're about ready to harvest, but it looks like there's going to be hell next week.

[27:15] And there was always some disaster, imminent disaster. And he would work hard all year long. And we discovered that you could work hard. You could do everything right. You could go through the motions.

[27:26] You could get up early. And you could work until late. And you could do this for an entire year. And a storm could come along and wipe it all out in an afternoon. So if that happens, then what do you do?

[27:39] You just do it again next year. And you do it again next year. And you do it again next year. And sometimes you see fruit. And sometimes everything you've worked for gets destroyed.

[27:55] Marcelo, when he went up to Cachi, he's been through about four cycles now. He went up to plant this work up there. It's in an area very different from where we are in Córdoba.

[28:06] Córdoba was a big city, urban, kind of very contemporary, modern culture. Up there in Cachi, it's like going back to another time.

[28:16] People up there are more influenced by kind of animism. They worship the Pachamama. They dig a hole in the ground. And they pour beer in the ground and offer it to the goddess. And all this stuff.

[28:27] And the Catholic church is stronger up there. And I told Marcelo, you know what? It's probably not going to be easy. Where you're wanting to plant a church, there's not been a gospel witness ever, ever.

[28:40] And Satan has had these people enslaved literally for thousands of years. Don't expect that this will be easy. And he would witness. He would do all that he could to win people to Christ.

[28:53] He would see a group come together. He'd get 20, 30 people together. And then something would happen. It would just all fall apart. It was the most frustrating thing. About four times he would get a group together.

[29:04] And he'd feel like now it's starting to gel. It's starting to happen. And then it would just all fall apart. Finally, over the last year and a half, I think we finally see a core group that's going to stick.

[29:16] He's finally been able to see some people grow and be baptized and take serious steps of faith. It requires incredible perseverance.

[29:29] You do everything you're supposed to do. And you understand that ultimately the harvest is not in your power. The harvest is only of the Lord. And it will only happen in his time.

[29:42] So four characteristics. Long-suffering focus, discipline, and perseverance. In the last section, the following verses, Paul focuses on the gospel itself and the purpose of preaching it.

[30:02] In verse 8, we see that his message is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

[30:16] The offspring of David has preached in my gospel. He said, this is what it's all about. You're to be a faithful man, but it's not about you. Your message is not yourself.

[30:28] It's not about your personal qualities. It's about Jesus Christ. He says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. The offspring of David has preached in my gospel.

[30:39] So this phrase, you know, really it's something that would have to be unpacked. It's really a summary for the entire message of the gospel. He doesn't talk about the crucifixion, but when he talks about the resurrection, he's talking about the entire gospel.

[30:55] It's a summary of the message. So he's really referring to everything. He's referring to Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ incarnate, the second person of the Trinity who became flesh, who came down, who dwelt among us, who made his tent among us, who lived amongst us, who suffered as we suffered, who was tempted.

[31:14] In all things, just like we're tempted, and yet he was always without sin. He never sinned at any point. He was always obedient to his Father. He walked in perfect righteousness.

[31:24] He never did anything that he didn't hear his Father say. He never said anything that didn't come from his Father first. He was perfectly obedient. And in his perfect obedience, his final act of obedience was to head to Jerusalem, knowing that what waited for him in Jerusalem was his own death.

[31:42] And he very much on purpose walked, headed to the cross. And he accepted death on the cross. He on purpose sought that death in our place. He suffered.

[31:54] He was beaten. He was abused. He was insulted. And he bled out. And God lowered on him and punished in his body all of the sins that we have ever committed.

[32:19] God saw his sacrifice and says it's acceptable. Christ himself said, it is finished. And he gave up the ghost.

[32:31] And because it was acceptable on the third day, God raised him up by the power of the Spirit. And now he sits on the throne.

[32:43] And he reigns. And he will reign until he's put all of his enemies under his feet. Amen. Paul says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

[33:00] The offspring of David was preached in my gospel. Ultimately, our faithfulness is not about us. It's about the gospel. And about the life-changing power of the gospel.

[33:13] Because he goes on, he says, for which I am suffering. So his message is the gospel. Here's his hope. His hope is that the word of God is not bound. He said, for which I am suffering, bound with change is a criminal.

[33:26] It must have been hard for Paul. It would be hard for anybody. But Paul was one of those hyperactive kind of guys. He was always going to the next place. He always had plans.

[33:37] He was always ready to preach to the next person. God at one time was giving him an ever-expanding ministry. Now it's been reduced to the size of a prison cell. And he can go no further than what the chains that he's chained to the wall with will let him.

[33:54] He understands for him it's over. He's bound. His effectiveness in many ways is bound. But he says, it doesn't matter.

[34:07] Here's my hope. He says, remember Jesus Christ as preached in my gospel. For which I am suffering. I'm willing to suffer for this gospel. And be bound in change as a criminal.

[34:19] But the word of God is not bound. And we know it's true. We're reading his letter now 2,000 years later. So his message, the gospel.

[34:35] His hope, the word of God is not bound. And his purpose. His purpose was the salvation of the elect. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect.

[34:47] That they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Paul says, I'm doing this for the sake of the elect.

[34:58] Now notice that he doesn't say, I'm doing this for the sake of the doctrine of election. He believes the doctrine of election. He lays it out in Ephesians.

[35:10] He lays it out in Romans. He lays it out in other places. But for him, the doctrine of election is something that's very personal. So he doesn't say, I'm doing this. I'm standing up for the doctrine of election.

[35:22] I'm standing up for five points. This is very personal to him. For him, it's about God's beloved. It's about those people that God has called to himself.

[35:33] This is about his family. This is about people that God has loved. And because God has loved them, he loves them as well. So when he writes this book, when he writes this letter, he's thinking about people that God has chosen.

[35:47] People that God has sought out. That are now his family. He's thinking about Lois and Eunice. He's thinking about Timothy himself. He's thinking about Onesephorus.

[35:59] And he says, I'm willing to do it because these are my beloved brethren. I'm willing to be bound for them. This is the purpose, that God would call to himself a great family of people from all over the world.

[36:14] This morning, you know, always, when we're away, you know, we show our videos and I see the faces of people down there and I miss them. People say, how can you leave your kids up here and your grandkids?

[36:28] And we miss our kids and we miss our grandkids. But we're up here and we miss our kids and grandkids in Argentina. And they're every bit as much a part of our family as our family, which is flesh and blood.

[36:39] We miss them. We miss Manuel and Sirly and we miss Marcelo and Nancy and their daughter Priscilla. And we miss Fabian and Marcela and their two kids.

[36:54] Their youngest kids named Sapo. That means frog. That's his nickname. He's a great little kid. Alejandro and, I think of Alejandro and his wife, Soledad, would be preaching this morning in Jesus Maria.

[37:15] The congregation has grown there. They rented a building. It's too small. They got people looking in through the windows. They've had a rough year. She's been struggling with breast cancer and they've stuck by it.

[37:26] It could go down a long list of names. People who are beloved of God. Who, because the gospel of Jesus Christ was preached, have been called to salvation.

[37:45] Paul says, I'm willing to be bound for the sake of the gospel and because I love God's people. You, then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

[38:00] And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

[38:12] What's Paul's method? Simply give the gospel to faithful men. I think it leaves us with a question this morning.

[38:26] A challenge to each one of us. I need to ask myself, am I this kind of faithful man? A faithful man who relies not his own strength, but is strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

[38:44] And I would ask you to ask the same question. Are you a faithful man? Are you a faithful woman? Dear Father, your son was faithful.

[38:56] He was obedient. We thank you for his sacrifice. And we thank you that he has called us to himself.

[39:13]  Help us to be faithful stewards of the gospel. And raise up another generation. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.