Dear Sunday School class,
I have enjoyed teaching you all tremendously for these past two years. Teaching you brought me great joy as i see many of you growing both steadily in stature, and more importantly, in truth. I am also thankful for my fellow teachers, bro Jimmy and Moses helping to share God's wonderful truth to you all. I am most confident that the class will reach greater spiritual heights in 2011.
I wish to just use the scripture used for sun sch sun memorization as an exhortation to us all. Its Paul's last words to his fellow worker in Christ, Timothy to whom he has treated very much like a son, and always been a mentor to him.
Being Paul's last words and knowing that he was soon to be executed for the cause of Christ, you can be sure that it will be his heartfelt words that he wants communicated to him.
Be Equipped for Good Work
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The reason for scripture towards is to equip us to do the good work that God wants us to do. Scripture is not to be just academically understood, intellectually analyzed and left there. Its purpose is to prepare us that we are to live it out by doing good works that glorify God and edifies men.
It prepares us by teaching it to us. But we so often disobey or ignores its teaching. Hence, God through His servants rebukes and corrects us to obedience. We in humility should both accept such rebuke, and have the courage to rebuke others in wrong, that they too are trained to do righteous acts, to be equipped for the good work of God.
Be Prepared to Preach, Correct, Rebuke, Encourage that Man will come to Christ
1 ...I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
Part of the good work that Paul wants us to do is to preach the word. We are to prepare ourselves to preach at anytime. Do we know how to share the simple gospel facts to a friend? Have we ever done it? Most often, we do not know and we dare not do it. Because we are not prepared. Before an exam, before an interview, we prepare ourselves well. Why not before sharing the most important truth to a friend? Be prepared, and naturally, God will lead us to be able to share powerfully and courageously to someone in need of the truth.
Being prepared enables us to preach powerfully. Preaching involves telling. However, we cannot just stop there. Reflect on our own spiritual lives. Yes, we may understand the gospel facts after being told. But many times, we have fallen and disobeyed God's teachings. That is when we may need to correct and even rebuke someone who is still struggling to acknowledge Christ as Lord. The process of preaching includes telling, correcting, rebuking.
And the last component, encouraging. We tell, we correct, we rebuke and we encourage someone to come to Christ. Continue to follow up with someone by encouraging him to pray, to read the bible, to attend worship service, to come back to biblical truth. This is the entire spectrum of preaching God's truth.
The Problem Today – God's truth compromised for itching ears
3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
We are to preach, by telling, rebuking and encouraging. This is importantly so today, where we see that indeed where many are not putting up with God's truth but instead wants to hear a message that they think its from God and yet fitting for their own lustful desires.
Today, people wish to hear messages of undeserved favour, victorious living, living our best life now. These are mainly achieved through freedom from illnesses, being asset rich and having a successful career. They twist the truth for example, saying that when Jesus was born, because gold was offered to Him, He was rich from young. They turn aside, misinterpret and deny the verses that call us to deny ourselves and be willing even to the point of dying for the sake of Christ, DAILY.
God's truth is compromised, twisted, denied into a message of worldly hope, possession and freedom for itching ears.
Our Response to the Problem Today
5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
Yes we have the problems of God’s truth being compromised today. But we are not to just sit back and despair at the situation. Paul exhorts us to respond, to endure, to discharge our duties, with an alert mind.
Regardless of what debates and defense against falsehood, we are called to have an alert mind. To keep our minds, convictions and actions rooted and steadfast in God’s Word, that we stand on an absolute standard instead of being swayed by waves of men’s words.
When we do this, there may appear hardships. We mind be rejected, criticised, ostracised by family, friends, society. But we are called to endure this. Not for a moment, a day, a week, but even till the end of our lives. And upon endurance, we are called to action. To continue to discharge our duties in the midst of falsehood and attacks.
It maybe certainly difficult to follow this. But we have an example in Paul. And Paul has an example in Christ. Paul continues to exhort us with the example of a living sacrifice.
Being Poured Out like an Offering
6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Paul here re-iterates that we should all be offered as living sacrifices. To be poured out like offerings unto God. To the point of death. Such is the weight of these words. To render all our thoughts, will, bodies, everything we owe unto God. Paul rendered all his thoughts unto God. His will all unto God. His previous riches forsaken for the sake of Christ. His body unto God that he knew he was going to be executed soon for the sake of Christ.
And because he has done these, he can truly say that he has fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith. Such words should not be haphazardly used on anyone’s grave unless he has truly earned it. And more importantly, he has earned the crown of righteousness bestowed upon by God Himself.
The Reward in Store for Paul
8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
When such has lived a life like Paul, there is a reward in Heaven. The reward is a crown of righteousness, given to a good, faithful servant of God. We might give up temporal earthly rewards, but let us fix our hopes upon the ultimate reward awarded by God. This reward is not exclusive only to Paul but all who longed for God’s appearing.
Yes, by God’s grace we are freely saved. But let us not be saved like a man escaping from a house in flames. But let us be saved, with full confidence, with God’s rejoicing in us entering His kingdom, rejoicing in awarding His crown unto us. Because we have served Him well in our current lives.
May this passage of scripture stay with us, to remind us, to mould us, to rebuke us, to encourage us, for the service of God, for the reaching out to unsaved men.
Jason
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