Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Tidbits. Today, we're in 2 Timothy 2 and verse number 13, and we are rounding out this hymn, this poem, that Paul is encouraging Timothy with.
And he is trying to help remind him, Timothy, you're going through all sorts of struggles and difficulties right now. They're in Ephesus. You're encountering fear and doubt and shame.
And I want to encourage you to keep on going for the Lord. And so I'm going to read from verse 11 through to where we are now at verse 13. It says, This saying is trustworthy, 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.
So I want to kind of tag in what we learned at the very end of last episode in the end of verse number 12. If we deny him, he will also deny us. That we cannot deny Jesus as Lord and expect salvation.
It says, If we are faithless, if we do not believe in Jesus, it says, He remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. There are probably two aspects to this that we'll take a brief look at today. Number one is this.
Jesus is faithful to do two things. Number one, always faithful to his character and to his nature. And then number two, he is faithful in his response to our free will.
So there, if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.
For someone to say, I reject the source of life, I do not want the goodness and love of God, the natural result of that is that we would when we die, end up away from that source of life and goodness and love.
There is no reconciliation to God for that person that rejects God. If we are faithless, we do not believe in him. His faithfulness, his consistency in his character means that he cannot deny himself.
He cannot tell the person that has rejected life, if no, you are going to get life anyway. And you are going to be reconciled to me and be with the love and joy and goodness that is intrinsic to who God is even though you said you don't want it.
Instead, his faithfulness means I will respect your decision even if that decision means that if you experience eternal rejection and condemnation and alienation from God's presence. That's not Jesus' desire at all.
In fact, he died so that we would not have to. He did not come to condemn the world, but so that the world through him would be saved. God is not willing that anyone would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.
God's goal is that everyone would turn to him, but God's faithfulness means that if someone has rejected him, he must respect that decision. And he has given us free will, and he will respect that in us.
There's one other way in which we can take this verse as well, and I do want to highlight this too. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
For the person that has truly accepted Christ, and maybe they're not denying him as Savior or Lord, but they fall and they are unworthy in a moment. You have Paul who says, the things that I don't want to do, that's what I'm doing.
And the things that I do want to do, that's what I'm not doing. If you're in a situation like that, you are Peter that denies the Lord three times.
You are like Peter again, who in effect kind of denies the gospel through being ashamed of his Gentile brothers and sisters in the Lord when he was in Antioch. And Paul has to go to him and be like, what in the world are you doing?
This isn't how the gospel works. We're not just the Jews anymore. It's not just the Jews that are God's people.
It is all of those that believe in Jesus that are God's people. And in those moments when we fail, he is faithful to save us and to redeem us and to forgive us from our sins because he can't deny himself.
And the person that has staked their life and their hope and their eternity on Jesus, they will be saved even if they fail, even if they fall and make their way into sin.
He says for the person that is still in Jesus, Jesus' faithfulness means that he cannot deny himself. And if we are truly his, he will never reject those that have come to him in faith. So for Timothy, the encouragement is this.
Remain faithful to the Lord. Trust in him. Go through the hard times because God will reward you.
And there is no reward. There is no life for those that have rejected Jesus. Thanks for tuning in.
See you in verse number 14 next time.
