Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk, and today we begin a little, if you will, hymn. It's a little poem that is contained in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 and verses 11, 12, and 13.
So today and in the next two episodes, we'll be looking at the three portions of this poem, that as Paul is writing to Timothy, he's encouraging him to stick with the Lord despite circumstances, despite persecution, despite shame and fear that can
rise up as people get discouraged from following the Lord. And he wants to encourage him. And so he uses this this phrase, and he begins in verse 11 by saying, this saying is trustworthy.
And then I'll read the whole poem right now, and then we'll look just at the first two lines for verse 11. He says, for if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Okay, so first there in verse number 11, it says, this saying is trustworthy.
This is something that's dependable. This is something that we can rely on. And he says, if we died with him, we will also live with him.
Okay, what would it mean to die with Jesus? Because certainly, as Timothy had never seen the risen Christ and he likely would never have seen Jesus on earth while he was living in just his regular earthly body.
Timothy was from a whole different region of the world. So what would it mean to die with Jesus? Well, we can think to Romans chapter 6, where we are told that we were buried with Jesus in baptism.
And 1 Corinthians 12 would explain what kind of baptism in particular that's talking about. And it's that spiritual baptism that we go through that when we accept the Lord, we are placed into Jesus.
We are placed into the body of Christ, into God's family. We are made one with Christ when we are saved, when we by faith repent from our sin and believe in Jesus as our Lord and our Savior. And so as we do that, we are placed into Christ.
And it's like our souls die. We surrender our will. We surrender our, if you will, right to self-determination.
And we say, nope, Bryon Self, my plans for my life, me on the throne of my heart, that's dead. I'm gone. And that old self is crucified and dead and buried.
Paul would say in Galatians chapter 2 and in verse number 20, he would say, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He says, when I accepted Jesus, I died to me.
And if we have died to ourselves, that is, if we have been born again, that the old life is buried and gone, and the new life has been picked up, then we are promised that we will live with Jesus.
You can think on John 11, where Jesus tells Mary and Martha that the one that believes in Jesus, even if he dies, he will live.
And so Paul encourages Timothy, and he says, don't be afraid, even of death, don't be afraid of the circumstances of your life, because you are no longer in charge of your life. Your life is no longer yours to determine what you do with it.
It belongs to God, and God determines how you talk, and how you act, and what you do, and who you interact with, and how you interact with them, and how you respond to wrongs done against you.
And so he says, if we've died with him, if we've accepted Jesus and laid down our will and our life, we will also live with him.
There is a hope, certainly of everlasting life, but there's also a hope that we carry today, like Jesus talked about in John 10, that Jesus came so that we would have life, and we would have it more abundantly.
That's the life that God calls us to live, a life that is not rocked by the difficulties that we walk through, but instead, we are on steady, dry ground as we pass through seas that would destroy those that don't know Christ.
I'm thinking here of Moses and the Red Sea and the Israelites.
They pass through on dry ground, and as soon as they leave and Pharaoh and his army try and come through afterwards, the Red Sea pours back in on them and destroys them and wipes them out, and God brings us through our difficulties and our trials,
and we walk through, and it is because we are following him, and we have surrendered our will, that where God says to go, we go. What God says to say, we say. What God says not to do, we don't do. Today, have you died with Christ?
Have you accepted him as your Lord and Savior and laid down your will, your self-determination in favor of God? What do you want me to do with my life? Because the promise is we will live with him.
