The Reward of Faithfulness

0:31I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

1:15For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the cross. 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 loved his appearing. This is God's word. You may be seated.

1:44In our day and age, almost every business has some kind of a customer loyalty program. Something where you sign up for it, usually you download an app or something, and then you purchase a certain number of things, and then you get rewards as a result of being a part of that program. Well, as we know, some rewards programs are legendary. Amazon Prime is a legendary awards program, loyalty program, by which you sign up for, and then you get all of these great benefits. Starbucks is another legendary awards and loyalty program. You buy certain numbers of food and drinks there, and then you get rewarded with free food and drinks, even things on your birthday.

2:28But some customer loyalty programs are not so great. Like Subway. A few years ago, if you signed up for the loyalty program, you would earn a free sandwich for every $100 that you spent there. I think they realized that was a little bit outrageous. And so now the deal is if you spend $50, you get $2 off your next sandwich. So let me get this straight. If I eat 10 $5 footlongs, I get $2 off the 11th.

3:07Now, $2 off is stingy, but it's the underlying premise that I find most outrageous, that you could actually survive eating 10 $5 footlongs. Like, what would the autopsy reveal there? His arteries are plugged with meatball marinara. Not the best rewards program. Thankfully, God has a better rewards program than Subway does. And we are going to learn about that rewards program, so to speak, today in 2 Timothy 4:1 through 8. In this passage, Paul is going to impress upon Timothy the necessity of a faithful life and a faithful ministry.

3:48And living that faithful life and living out that faithful ministry is not something that's going to be easy. But Timothy is going to have to keep his faith to the end. He's going to have to do the work that God has called him to do as pastor of the church at Ephesus. And, friends, in the same way, you and I are called to keep the faith until the end, to run that race with endurance that God has called us to run.

4:12We're called to fulfill the ministry that God has given to us. And so today, as we look at these verses together, we're going to be reminded that God rewards those who keep the faith and fulfill their ministries. So let's look now at verse 1 together. It begins, I charge you in the Presence of God. Paul begins this final chapter with this charge to Timothy. But before he gets to the charge itself, he's going to lay the foundation of the charge. On what grounds is he making the charge?

4:46Well, the basis is twofold. In the first, it's given in the presence of God. See, in the end, it's not Paul alone who's commanding these things, it is God Himself who is speaking to Timothy through Paul. And this first verse reads like a lawyer putting someone under oath in a court of law. In fact, this verb translated charge actually has legal connections. It means something like testify under oath. And so that's what Paul is doing. He's saying, I am charging you, I'm putting you under oath to do these things that I'm about to say. So the first basis is that it's made in the presence of God. The second is that it's given in the presence of Christ Jesus. Look at what he says here, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom.

5:41You see, Jesus is the final judge of the living and the dead, not any human court. He alone is going to be the one who's going to judge whether Timothy has been faithful. And so Timothy needs to live and to minister with that knowledge that he's going to stand before the one true judge, God Himself. And Christ Jesus. And Jesus is the king. He's the king who rules over all creation, who has appeared once to live perfectly, to die, and to rise again, but who is coming again. He's going to appear a second time. And the last thing that Timothy wants is to be like the unfaithful servant, the unfaithful tenant in Jesus' parable, who, when the king returns from being away for a long time, is not prepared. He's not ready for the king to come back.

6:31And so Paul begins by establishing the basis for this charge so that Timothy will comprehend the gravity of what he's about to say. You're going to stand before God. You're going to stand before Christ Jesus, who is the king who is coming back. And what is this charge? Look what he says. Preach the word. Preach the word. The charge is that simple to Timothy. You are to preach the word. Now, that word translated preach means something like publicly announce while urging compliance.

7:09So if you think back a long time ago to medieval times, there was a man in the kingdom known as the herald. And the herald would be sent out with a message from the king, and his job was to go stand in the middle of the town square and to cry out the orders or the dictates of the king. He would announce what the king had proclaimed, and then he would urge compliance. To this. This is what the king says, and this is how we need to reorder our lives based on his orders.

7:37That's what Paul is calling Timothy to do. He's calling him to announce it and urge compliance to it. And that charge to preach, of course, is given to Timothy, who is a pastor in a local church, but that charge also applies to every Christian. We're very quick in 21st-century America to associate preaching just with public worship services like this one. And so we're quick to assume the only people who should be preaching are pastors. But as we're going to see, every believer is called to announce the good news and to call people to live their lives in compliance to it, to call people to repent and believe.

8:17And we should remember that the whole reason that we are here today, the whole reason that you are a worshipper of Jesus Christ today, if you are a worshipper of Jesus Christ today, is because someone in your life preached the good news to you. Someone in your life announced the truth about Jesus' sinless life and death and resurrection, and you believed through their proclamation. And so we can't preach to everyone. No one person can reach everyone, but we can pray for those who are going to the ends of the earth, and we can be faithful to proclaim the good news to everyone who is in our lives.

8:56God has placed people in your life through your job. And your classes, put people in your neighborhood for the purpose of you reaching them with the good news. And so we can pray and we can proclaim. Now, he answers the question: next, what should characterize Timothy's preaching and our preaching? Look what he says. He says, first, be ready in season and out of season. Be ready in season and out of season. Timothy needed to be ready at all times. He needed to have an urgency about him with respect to preaching the gospel.

9:36Well, here at Texas A ⁇ M, we have a weekly reminder in the fall of what it looks like to be ready in season and out of season. Every single week, at every single home game for Texas A ⁇ M, the entire student body stands the entire game. And the reason the student body stands the entire game is because of the tradition of being ready to enter the game at a moment's notice. If the team needs you, you're ready to go into the game. Now, of course, in the age of 100-man rosters, this would be a truly disastrous situation if you or I were called into the game. We would probably explode on impact if we tried to tackle one of those players out there. But that's what we're signifying. We're saying we're ready in season and out of season to go into the game. And that analogy is maybe pretty good because we're called to preach the word in season and out of season. That can also be. Translated in favorable times and in unfavorable times. In favorable times and unfavorable times. So, in other words, no matter what we're up against, no matter what the odds look like, no matter whether people are eager to hear God's word or they're not eager to hear God's word, we have to be ready to proclaim it in favorable times and in unfavorable times. So, first, he says you've got to be ready in season and out of season. Second, look what he says: reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

11:08Our primary task is to announce the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. But that task also includes calling those who believe the good news to live in a manner worthy of the Lord who bought us with his blood. And so, that's why he says we must reprove. In other words, we have to convict or to expose that which is out of step with the gospel. We have to rebuke or firmly reprimand those who continue in sin or who knowingly sin against the Lord without any respect to what he's called us to or his holiness or our witness together as a church. We're called to exhort one another. That means to strongly encourage other followers of Jesus. And all of that is really important because when we We come to faith in Christ, we are justified. And that word theologically means that we are counted righteous. We're counted righteous. When we put our faith in Christ, we're not actually made righteous in that instant. We are counted righteous. The righteousness of Christ is credited to us. So that means that after we've believed in Jesus, we are still going to struggle with the old sinful desires that we had before. We're still going to struggle with wrong thinking, maybe even sinful habits that we've accumulated over the years. All of that is going to be a struggle for us, even though now as followers of Christ, our great desire is to grow in holiness. That's what we want more than anything. But we need people in our lives who are willing to reprove and rebuke and exhort us.

12:51And look at how he says we're supposed to do that with complete patience and teaching. Now that my kids are older, I often reflect on my failures as a young parent when my kids were little, how I often failed to instruct them with complete patience and teaching. Young parents, and we have a lot of them here at our church, you're used to reproving, you're used to rebuking, you're used to exhorting all day long. But we tend to do that without much patience or teaching, don't we? I mean, when you're correcting the same thing for the 200th time that day. It's hard to go on doing that with complete patience and teaching. And so it seems like, as young parents, we just think to ourselves, if I just say it louder, they will understand. The problem is a lack of volume and passion. And if I bring those things to the table, my kids will now start to obey. I speak from experience here. My kids will testify. I speak from experience here. But what we tend to forget, especially those of us who are younger parents, is that we're dealing with little children who require the very thing that we are removing from that situation, and that is patience and teaching. And in the same way, we have forgotten how much patience and teaching the Lord has done for us in our lives. I mean, when you consider how many times we have sinned against God, how many times we have failed to obey his commands, how many times we have let him down in various ways, you begin to understand a level of the patience that God has had with us, a level of the teaching that he has done over and over through his word and through his spirit and through prayer and through his people. God has been completely patient with us. He has taught us the same things again and again. And so, in the same way, we need to do all that we do as a church, as Christians, with complete patience and teaching. We're called to preach the word. We're called to tell people the truth, but there's a certain way in which that has to be done. It has to be done urgently, in season and out of season, in favorable times and unfavorable times. And it has to be done with complete patience and teaching.

15:11And in verse 3, Paul is going to explain to us exactly why that's so important. Look now at verse 3 with me. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. See, the whole reason we have to be ready to preach the word in favorable and unfavorable times is because the time is coming, and Paul is implying it's now here when people won't endure sound teaching. What are they going to do instead? They're going to heap up or accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

16:02You see, the way this is supposed to work is we're supposed to start with God. And we're supposed to say, what does God say is true? And then we seek to believe that and conform our lives to what God reveals to be true. But instead of starting with God and starting with the question, what does God say is true, we start with ourselves. And we ask the question, what do I say? Want to be true? What do I want to be true? And then we find people in our lives who will affirm what we already believe.

16:40I know a lot of you have read Mark Dever's book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and you may remember this story that he tells in this chapter. He was in a doctoral seminar, and this man was sharing his thoughts about God. Look on the screen. He says, for several minutes, Bill painted a picture for us of a friendly deity. He liked to think of God as being wise but not meddling, compassionate, but never overpowering, ever so resourceful but never interrupting. This, said Bill in conclusion, is how I like to think of God.

17:14Well, Mark Dever goes on to share how he told Bill that what he was doing was really not telling others about God, but telling others about himself. Because what he was doing was not basing his thoughts about God on objective fact, but on what he wanted to be true about God. You see, friends, the reality is God either exists or he doesn't. And if he exists, then we can either know the truth about him or we can't. And if we can know the truth about this God that exists, then in the end, it doesn't matter at all what we think about God or what we wish were true about God. All that matters in the end is what is God actually like? Like.

18:01That's the only thing that matters in the end. And so we have to be careful that we don't accumulate for ourselves teachers who will mold God into an image that we want. And instead, we need teachers who will tell the truth, who will preach the word, and say, this is what God has revealed about himself. This is what God has revealed to actually be true. And this is another reason why a robust church membership process is so very important.

18:33Because if you don't have a robust church membership process, then people can just join the church that wants to join without any kind of vetting process whatsoever. So it should be no surprise to us that many churches just hire pastors who will tell them what they want to hear. Because those people came into church membership with their thought process already, I want somebody to affirm for me what I already think God is like. I read a comment not long ago where there was another pastor saying, if you go for a long time to the same church and the pastor never says anything that offends you, you might question what kind of church you're going to.

19:14And that's not to say that pastors are supposed to be offensive in and of themselves. It's that you can't preach the word of God wholly and faithfully and never offend people. You're going to offend people. And so this very thing is the Reason why we have an abundance of churches all over our country filled with pastors telling people exactly what they want to hear. And we often blame the false teachers, and rightfully so to some extent, but we should keep some of the blame for the churches who hire these men or who allow them to continue preaching things that are not true from God's word.

19:56Paul says we have to be careful because many people are not going to endure sound teaching, and instead they're going to heap up teachers, to accumulate teachers that will tell them what they want to hear. And so rather than giving up, look at what Timothy is supposed to do. Look at verse 5. As for you, always be sober-minded. Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. So Timothy, once again, is called to be the opposite of these false teachers. He's called to be completely different than they are. And that's true for us as Christians as well, because as we've talked about many times in the pastoral epistles, what are pastors doing? They're teaching and modeling the normal Christian life for everyone else to follow. So these commands go to all of us. What are we to be as Christians? First, we are to be sober-minded.

20:57I really love the way that the NIV translates this. Translates this, it says, keep your head in all situations. Keep your head in all situations. I mean, don't we know, maybe more than anybody in any other period of time, that people regularly lose their minds? We have reminders of this on the news and on social media every day. We need to make sure that as Christians, we're living in a clear-minded way, that we're not getting whipped up into a frenzy every single time the latest outrage has crossed social media. We need to keep our heads in all situations. We need to be sober-minded. God is still on his throne. Yes, there is tremendous injustice in our world. Yes, there is tremendous amounts of sin in our own communities. We need to be frank about that. We need to be upright. We certainly don't turn a blind eye to any of that, but we also don't lose our minds. God is still on his throne, he is still in control. So we're to be sober-minded. Secondly, he says, endure suffering.

22:06When sound teaching is unpopular, and sound teaching is certainly unpopular in our day, then the temptation is to avoid speaking the truth. Because whenever you say things that are not popular, you're going to be persecuted for them. You're going to have people urging you to stop. You're going to have people maybe even Compelling you to stop through their words or through violent action. But Timothy and we are to endure suffering. We're to go on preaching the truth and be ready to suffer for it because it's worth it.

22:46He says that we should do the work of an evangelist. I think today we have a very narrow definition of what an evangelist is and does. In our minds, when we think of an evangelist, we think of someone like Billy Graham. We think of someone who dedicates their life to going from place to place and sharing the good news, preaching the gospel, and then leaving. But Paul, in the first century, had a much broader definition, which I think even comes out in this passage, of what an evangelist actually is. It includes sharing the good news, for sure. That's the main work. It includes proclaiming the truth about Jesus, but it also includes teaching Christians to obey everything that Jesus commanded.

23:31I mean, you notice when you read the book of Acts that Paul never went to any city and preached the gospel and then did not plant a church. I mean, he did that every single time. He preached the gospel, he gathered the believers into a local church, and then he explained for them, this is how you now need to live your life as a follower of Jesus. This is what your life together needs to look like. This is what your individual lives need to look like. Being an evangelist includes proclaiming the gospel, but it all Includes teaching people to obey everything that Jesus commanded. It includes reproving and rebuking and exhorting, like we just talked about.

24:10And let me make another plug for the discipleship class coming up in a couple weeks, prepared to proclaim. If this is an area that you feel weak in, and most of us do, let me encourage you to give up an hour a week for six weeks and come and be equipped to share your faith with confidence. What could be more important than us being equipped together to do that? And then I love this last charge that he gives to him. Look at what he says here. He says, fulfill your ministry.

24:43Fulfill your ministry. God called Timothy, not somebody else, to shepherd the church at Ephesus. He wasn't called to try to be someone else or to do someone, to do what someone else does. And I can speak from experience, you know, in the pastoral world. I know all of you guys feel this in different ways in your own careers. I know moms feel this and dads feel this. But I read this article a while back that was saying, you know, if God wanted Tim Keller to pastor your church, he would be at your church. If you wanted John Piper at your church, he would be at your church, but he's not, you are. And so fulfill your. Ministry. Don't try to be those guys. And in the same way, God is not calling you to be like that other mom or you to be like that other dad or that other employee or anything else. He's calling you to be you, to fulfill your ministry.

25:46But so often we get caught looking sideways at other people, don't we? And we wonder things like, why can't I have those gifts? Why can't I have those circumstances? Why can't I have that ministry? And of course, the irony in the whole thing is there's probably one or more people looking at you and thinking, I just wish I had those opportunities, those gifts, those circumstances. That's the way that it works. I believe it was Teddy Roosevelt who is credited with saying, comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy. And that's why we have so little joy in the 21st century because comparison is at an all-time high with the internet and social media and everything else. And so, friends, remember, you are not called to be someone else or to do something else. You are called to fulfill your ministry. Rather than spending so much time looking around at what everybody else is doing, we need to put our hand to the plow and to do what God has called us to do. How much more could we accomplish for the kingdom of God if every one of us were focused on doing what God called us to do rather than worrying about what everybody else around us? Is doing.

27:02Fulfill your ministry. And so he's called Timothy to do all these things, but has Paul himself been a faithful model? Look at verse 6. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up 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 loved his appearing.

27:46You see, at this point, Paul knows that he doesn't have very much time left. And that's why he's written so passionately to Timothy, his beloved disciple, his beloved child in the faith. And Timothy needed to be ready to preach the word in favorable times and in unfavorable times because the time was coming when people would no longer endure sound teaching. And now Paul notes for the fourth time in this passage, the time of his departure has come.

28:15You see that again and again? You've got to be ready in favorable times and unfavorable times. The time is coming that people won't endure sound teaching, and now the time of my departure has come. I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. Now, if you're familiar with the Old Testament, that you know a little bit about drink offerings, this was often wine that was poured out on an altar as a sacrifice to God. Now, of course, wine was a precious commodity in the first century. There wasn't a whole lot of pottable drinking water. It wasn't like you could just find that anywhere. And so, wine, as alcoholic in content, was purified and it could be had without concern. And so, to pour that wine out that was in short supply, that was a real offering. It was a real sacrifice. It was a one-and-done deal, too. You can't put it back in the glass after it's done. And so, Paul is saying, My life has been poured out as a drink offering. My whole life has been an offering to God, and it's coming to the end. My one life is about over.

29:22You know, when you're young, you just don't think about how short life is. The older I get, the more aware I am of how short this life is. And why, at the end of life, so many people begin to ask questions like, Has my life made a difference? Has my life really counted? Have I been faithful? And so, it would be natural if Paul was a little bit anxious about the end of his life, but he's not anxious at all. He says, with all peace and with all confidence, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

30:00In the face of his very own death, he had nothing but peace and confidence. And if you go back to chapter 2, you see that Paul has lived out those analogies that he is now employing again in chapter 4. Paul was the good soldier. He shared in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. He didn't get entangled in civilian pursuits, but he lived to please his enlisting officer. He was a good soldier. And Paul was an athlete. He was an athlete who competed according to the rules and who ran the race and finished the race by keeping faith to the end.

30:42Friends, I think now more than ever, people are really good at starting things. We're really good at starting diet plans and exercise plans and projects and reading plans and savings plans and everything else, but we're not very good at finishing what we start. I mean, even now, you might have in mind, oh, yeah, I was going to finish that project. There's so many wives in the room right now, like, preach it, preach it, all of the undone projects.

31:11The Christian life isn't compared to a sprint, it's compared to a marathon. And in Hebrews 12, we're commanded to run with endurance the race that is set before us. And I know so many people, and I'm sure you do as well, who started the race of the Christian faith, but who dropped out after a while. I mean, I had three or four close friends in college who started the race of the Christian faith, but by the end of college, we're no longer walking with Jesus. You probably know some of those people too. And so, what's the difference between somebody who starts the race and somebody who finishes the race, somebody who runs it with endurance?

31:51I think many times it's because people lose sight of the goal. They take their eyes off the prize. Look what Paul says in verse 8. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. See, heaven is not like field day in elementary school, where everybody gets a green ribbon that is rightfully mocked and quickly forgotten. But instead, in heaven, you get the crown of righteousness just for finishing the race.

32:34I mean, some of you have run marathons before. Others know people who run marathons. If there's anybody in your life that runs marathons, you know about it. You know about it. The swag, right? You've got the jackets and the shirts and the metal and all the stuff, and they're toting that stuff around. Their car says 26.2. Not like mine that says 0.0. You know that they finished the race. And in heaven, You get the crown of righteousness. This was the thing that was awarded to the Olympic champions back in the day, or the champions of the Isthmian Games, the other major sports competition of the first century. And what Paul is saying is that the same crown, this victor's crown, is awarded to everybody who simply finishes the race.

33:22But look at what Paul adds here in verse 8: who says, Not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. That's a very important phrase. The people who are awarded this crown are those who, like Paul, have loved the thought of Jesus returning. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, verse 6. He says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. You see, that's who Paul is talking about here. He's talking about people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, whose great desire is to see God, is to be holy as He is holy, is to be united with Jesus when He returns.

34:15We have a great book available in our bookstall. It's called 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. We actually went through this in men's lunch a couple years ago, so plenty of you have read it. But if you haven't, let me encourage you to pick this up. It's a great book. And Don Whitney in the final. Chapter is asking the question to diagnose your spiritual health: do you increasingly yearn for heaven? And I want you to look at what he writes.

34:43He says, The older I get and the more easily my body fatigues, the more sympathetic I am to the desire for rest, eternal rest. But even Buddhists, Muslims, and atheists want that. There's nothing uniquely Christian about longing for an end to a wearying existence and the beginning of a new and more restful one. So the question is not merely, do you yearn for heaven and to be with Jesus, but also for which heaven and Jesus do you yearn? Growing Christians increasingly long for a holy heaven, not just a restful one. They look forward to holy relationships, not just nostalgic ones. They sigh to see a holy Jesus. They feel less and less at home in a sinful world because they are growing more and more homesick for a holy place, a holy people, and the God who is holy, holy, holy. They ache to share in this holiness more than heaven's rest, relief, or reunions.

35:52See, many professing Christians don't love the idea of Jesus returning because they love this world so much. Much. And losing the things that they love in this world sounds worse than Jesus coming back and inaugurating the new heavens and the new earth. But Paul was filled with such peace and such confidence when he thought about his own death because when he thought about it, he knew that he had fought the good fight and finished the race and kept the faith. And because of that, the crown of righteousness was going to be awarded to him. There could be nothing on this earth that could compare with that. He was ready. He loved the appearing of Jesus, and that's what we're called to do as well. And as a result, he looked forward to Jesus coming back.

36:43Now, friends, earlier I mentioned that the Christian life is often compared to a marathon and not a sprint. And that idea comes from Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. Look on the screen. The author says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. This is a great charge, but when you stop and think about that, that's very intimidating. I mean, it would be like somebody walking up to you and saying, like, hey, we're going to run a marathon today. You ready? No, I'm not. Not even remotely. I've been eating lucky charms and working out a Planet Fitness.

37:33So we can't forget the second verse of Hebrews 12. Look at what it says. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Friends, the only way that we will be able to keep the faith and fulfill our ministries is by keeping our eyes on Jesus. And the good news that Hebrews 12 brings to the forefront for us is that Jesus is not only our perfect example, but he is the one who fulfilled his ministry perfectly by living a sinless and miraculous life, by dying in my place and in yours for our sin, and by rising from the grave on the third day, defeating sin and death. Jesus is not just our example, Jesus is our Savior.

38:40And the reason that Paul had such peace and confidence in the face of persecution and death is that he knew he had the crown of righteousness waiting for him. But better than that and more than that, he knew that he had his Savior waiting for him. Jesus was the real prize, eternal life with God. With his Son and with His Spirit, that that was the prize. And so, friends, when we keep our eyes on Jesus, we can rest assured that God will give us strength to endure and to obey until the end. And as we see today, God rewards those who keep the faith and fulfill their ministries. Let's pray, Father, for so many in the room, the Christian life hasn't seemed to be all that difficult yet.

39:42They've been following Jesus for a few years, and maybe that's been pretty smooth sailing for them. And so, they can't really conceive of why somebody would stop running the race, why he would drop out before the end. But I think for those in the room who have been walking with Jesus for 10 or 20 or 40 or 60 years at this point, they realize how hard it is to keep the faith and to fulfill the ministry that you gave us.

40:21And so, God, we come before you right now to ask you for supernatural power. Supernatural faith that we could not conjure up on our own. We need it as a gift from you. God, give us faith to endure to the end. Even in the face of persecution, even in the face of difficulty and setback, would you grant us supernatural faith? And Father, we pray that you would help us to fulfill the ministry that you gave to us.

41:09It's so easy for us to get distracted looking around at what everybody else is doing, wondering why we don't have those gifts or that situation or that husband or that wife or that job or that ministry, whatever it would be. But you've called us where you have called us because you intended to put us in this place at this time for your good and perfect reasons. So, God, make us faithful. Help us to be those good soldiers who joyfully follow the example and the orders of our Savior Jesus.

41:54And God, we pray that we would be faithful to proclaim the good news, to preach the word. In season and out of season, I just want to take a moment and pray for every person that people in the room are currently sharing the gospel with. I pray for those classmates and those co-workers, those friends and family members that we have haltingly, fearfully, sometimes failingly, shared the gospel with. God, would you grant them faith and repentance? We want to see people come to saving faith in Jesus because we've simply been faithful to the ministry that you gave us.

42:45And so, God, we pray that you would encourage us, exhort us through your word, through one another, to go on doing the work that you've given us. We are so thankful, so privileged to be co-laborers with you in your great mission of calling your people to yourself. Thank you, God, for your word to us this morning. I pray that it would bear fruit in our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray all these things. Amen.