Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message July 27, 2025

2 Timothy 1:8-12

Theme: We will grow in the courage to give our all to the gospel if we will keep faithful to four courage-building habits.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Let me begin this morning by asking a question. It has to do with something that often lays unspoken in the back of our minds as followers of Jesus—but that sometimes pops up and hinders us when we’re trying to live faithfully for Him in the midst of an ungodly and unbelieving culture. Do you ever find yourself holding back from sharing the gospel because you’re slightly ashamed or embarrassed because of how the unbelieving people of this world respond to it? Now, that might seem to be a horribly outrageous question. Why should we, as Jesus’ followers, ever be in any way ashamed of the gospel? After all, the apostle Paul once declared, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes …” (Romans 1:16). It’s the most encouraging message that can be declared—the message that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). It’s the message that has the power to completely transform whoever believes it. It’s the good news of life, and forgiveness, and glorious hope to all people. Even the angels of heaven declared that it’s “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:11). Why then should anyone be ashamed of a message like that? But I didn’t ask if you’ve ever felt ashamed because of anything in the gospel itself. Rather, I asked if you’ve ever been ashamed because of how the people of this world respond to it. We recognize that it’s the power of God to those who believe it; but even the Bible itself says that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). It comes across as simplistic to those who consider themselves philosophically sophisticated and educated. And to those who consider themselves righteous and morally superior, it comes across as an insult. It’s even increasingly being viewed by unbelieving people in our own culture as something oppressive, and divisive, and that’s the cause of so many of the problems on the planet. Jesus once warned that if the world hated Him, it would also hate us for following Him. The apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:12 that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution”. And we certainly feel that. So I ask again: Do you ever find yourself holding back—even just a little bit—from sharing the gospel because you’re slightly ashamed or embarrassed over how the people of this world view it?

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The danger of that sense of shame and embarrassment was a significant theme in Paul’s second letter to Pastor Timothy. In 2 Timothy 1:8, he told Timothy, “do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner …” After all, Timothy had watched and seen how the apostle Paul—his beloved mentor—was thrown into a Roman jail for preaching the gospel. He must have known that Paul faced execution because of that message. But in verse 12, Paul told him, “nevertheless I am not ashamed”. In verse 16, he wrote of the household of a dear friend named Onesiphorus, who often came and refreshed Paul while he was in prison; and who “was not ashamed of my chain”. And he encouraged Timothy himself, in 2:15, to be “a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. ‘Not being ashamed’ is a repeated theme in this letter. And another thing you find in this letter is that there were a number of people who were ashamed. The fact that they ‘held back’ was a great heartache to Paul as he sat all alone in a lonely prison cell—awaiting the ax of the executioner. In 1:15, he wrote, “This you know, that all those in Asian have turned away from me …” In 4:10, he asked Timothy to come to him quickly; “for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world …” And in 4:16—at the time when he was brought before the judge—he said, “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me.” It seemed that when they looked upon the suffering that Paul was undergoing for his faithfulness to the gospel—because of the harsh way that the unbelieving world was responding to the message—they didn’t want to be associated with him any longer. They withdrew from him. They held back from a whole-hearted devotion to the gospel because they were ashamed and embarrassed by the way the world was reacting to it—and by how they were reacting to Paul, the preacher of it. I suspect that even Pastor Timothy himself was slightly tempted to hold back. In our last time together in 2 Timothy, we read of how Paul reminded Timothy to stir up the gift of ministry that he had been given; telling him in verse 7 that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” The fact that there were so many warnings in this letter about not being ashamed or embarrassed by the reactions of this world to the gospel is telling us that, if we aren’t careful, we might be tempted to hold back too. But that’s when we come to this morning’s passage in 2 Timothy 1:8-12. They were meant to give Timothy courage; and they should be a great encouragement to us as well. Paul told Timothy;

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day (2 Timothy 1:8-12).

Now; this passage is realistic. It recognizes that there may be times when we are tempted to hold back in giving our all to the ministry of the life-transforming message of the gospel in this world—and all because of how unbelieving people will react to it. It recognizes that it takes courage to faithfully live for Jesus and bear witness of Him in a hostile environment. It recognizes that it may sometimes cost us to do so. We might lose friends. We might lose close family relationships. We might lose promotions or vocational advancements. What’s more, there’s a growing threat in our own land—as it turns further and further from God’s standards of holiness—that we might lose some of our civic freedoms and liberties. There may even come a time when, like Paul—and like so many of our brothers and sisters in so many other places of this world today—we might lose our lives. But as this passage shows us, we will grow in the courage to give our all to the soul-saving, life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ if we will keep faithful to four basic courage-building habits. We can find those four habits in this passage.

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Now; before we look at those four habits, look first at how this passage begins. Paul tells Timothy in verse 8, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner…” The word “Therefore”, of course, points our attention back to what he had told Timothy in the previous verses. That’s where he wrote;

“Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (vv. 6-7).

It may have been—as he looked on and saw how his beloved mentor Paul had been arrested for the gospel and now faced death—that Timothy was tempted to be afraid. It would be hard to blame him. But I don’t believe that Paul was suggesting in verse 8 that Timothy had now fallen into a condition of being “ashamed” of the gospel or of Paul. The way that Paul puts this in the original language merely suggests that Timothy—if he wasn’t careful—might become ashamed of the testimony of the Lord Jesus, and of Paul as the Lord’s prisoner; that he only might fall into the same pattern that others had fallen into.¹ But that same kind of thing might happen to us, too, if we’re not equally careful. We might look around at the hostile way that the unbelieving world often responds to the gospel, we might see the way that its strongest and most faithful witnesses and proclaimers are insulted and mistreated, and we might ourselves also be tempted to hold back from being associated with it. But it’s important to remember that that kind of fear is not from God. It would be from the devil, who wants to intimidate us into being silent about the life-giving message of the gospel in this world. And so, Paul’s words are an encouragement to us not to hold back in fear. What he said to Timothy also applies to us: “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel …” This teaches us that …

1. WE NEED TO COURAGEOUSLY GIVE OUR ALL TO THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.

Instead of holding back, Paul invited Timothy to boldly share with him in the sufferings of the gospel. Paul admitted that suffering for the gospel is a reality. He knew that suffering in a very personal way. He even called himself the Lord’s ‘prisoner’—as if it hadn’t been men who had imprisoned him, but the Lord Himself for the sake of His gospel. But as he sat suffering in a prison cell for the Lord Jesus—with chains dangling from his hands and feet—he invited Timothy to share in it all with him. The apostle Paul considered the sufferings of Jesus a thing to be shared in by those who were His faithful followers. In Colossians 1:24, he wrote to the believers in the Colossian church and said;

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church … (Colossians 1:24).

Paul didn’t mean by this that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus was somehow incomplete and that he needed to complete it. Jesus had truly paid the full price for our redemption; and no other human being can ever add anything to it. Instead, what Paul meant was that since Jesus’ payment for our sins is finished, and now that He has been raised again for our justification, the thing that remained was to tell the world about it. Paul rejoiced that he could ‘fill up in his own flesh’ what was yet to be done in the afflictions of Christ by giving himself completely over to proclaiming the message to the world. He suffered for doing so; but faithfully doing so brought the good news of Jesus’ atonement to the world. And Paul was urging Timothy not to be ashamed, but to confidently join with him in sharing in that suffering. That same invitation is also extended to you and me. When we suffer in this world for our faithfulness to the Lord Jesus and to the call to proclaim Him to those around us, we’re sharing in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of the lost people He loves. What an honor!

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Now; that requires courage. It required courage for Paul; and it would also require courage for Timothy. And so; what follows in this passage are the kind of things that will build up that courage and prevent us from holding back. As verses 8-12 show us,

2. WE WILL GROW IN OUR COURAGE IF WE WILL KEEP TO FOUR BASIC HABITS.

First, Paul shows us that we will grow in our courage—and not become ashamed—if we will keep dependent on God’s enabling power. At the end of verse 8, the apostle Paul urged Timothy to join him in the sufferings for the gospel “according to the power of God”. The Bible makes it very clear to us that the power to bear witness to the message of the gospel in this world is not to come from a trust in our own strength and resources. Rather, it’s to come from a trust in God’s own power—given to us by grace. In Acts 1, we’re told the story of how Jesus gathered His apostles to Himself at Galilee—right after His resurrection, and just before He ascended to the Father. He was about to send them out into the world to proclaim His gospel; but Jesus warned them not to run right out immediately and begin preaching about Him. Instead, He told them to wait in Jerusalem until they had been endued with power from the Holy Spirit. In verse 8, He told them,

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

That power came upon them at Pentecost, just a week or so later, when the Holy Spirit was given. And think of that! In terms of their own power and natural resources, who could have been greater evangelists in this world than the apostles—those men who had just spent three-and-a-half years with our Lord, and who had seen Him crucified and raised from the dead, and who had watched as He ascended into glory? But not even they were to trust in their own power to be His witnesses. They needed to be given the power to be His witnesses by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Only after the Spirit had been given to them did they become bold and courageous witnesses to the gospel. And if they needed His empowerment, do we think we could be His witnesses in any other way? Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; when it comes to living for Jesus in such a way as to declare Him to the world, we—in and of ourselves—simply don’t have the power or the know-how or the courage. But we can have complete confidence in the enabling power of the indwelling Holy Spirit who bears witness to Jesus through us. Think of the apostle Paul. In another one of his letters—in the letter to the Philippians—he was suffering in prison for the sake of the gospel. But he wasn’t despondent, and he wasn’t holding back in fear. Instead, he was confident and content; writing,

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:12-13)..

So; here’s one habit we should keep faithful to in order to grow in courage: that is, to keep dependent on God’s enabling power through His indwelling Holy Spirit.

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Paul went on to show us that we will also grow in our courage if we will remember the sovereignty of God’s call. Paul went on in verse 9 to tell Timothy to join him in sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began …” Paul knew that the call to preach the gospel in this world wasn’t something that was merely his own idea. He knew—without a doubt—that he was saved by God’s grace through believing this gospel; and that he was called by God to proclaim it with a ‘holy calling’. Timothy would have known it too. He would have remembered how Paul was, at one time, a great persecutor of the church. But Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and called him to Himself. He sent a man named Ananias to come and lay hands on Paul, pray for him, and commission him to ministry—telling Ananias in Acts 9:15-16 that …

“… he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-16).

Paul did indeed suffer many things. He was suffering even as he wrote the words of our passage this morning. But he knew that it was all coming about because of the sovereign God who commissioned him to the task. And so, in spite of the things he suffered, he had the courage that comes from knowing that he’s right where the Lord wanted him to be. In fact, he wrote in Ephesians 3:8-9,

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ … (Ephesians 3:8-9);

even though he was in chains when he wrote those words! Dear brothers and sisters; there’s great confidence that comes from knowing that you’re in God’s sovereign will. He has called you and me to preach a gospel message that was established before the world began; and every situation we fall into in which we’re called to proclaim Him is under His sovereign control. That’s true even if we’re called to suffer for Him along the way for proclaiming it. Remembering this will give us courage.

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Paul went on further to tell us that we will grow in our courage if we will always keep our eyes on our victorious Savior. In verses 10-11, Paul wrote that we have been called into the gospel of God’s grace which was given before the world began, “but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.” That gospel was hinted at throughout the centuries of the Old Testament era; but it has now been made clear by the fact that the promised Savior—Jesus Christ—was born into the world, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death for us, was raised from the dead, has ascended to the Father, and has promised to return for those who place their trust in Him. He has both conquered death for us, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Think of what confidence and courage it should give us to know that Jesus not only suffered at the hands of people in His own time, but has also completely conquered death! In Revelation 1:18, He appeared in a vision to the apostle John in resurrection glory and said,

“I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:18).

He has won; and He has removed death’s ultimate power from us. As far as we, His followers, are concerned, death is now rendered ultimately harmless. Its ‘stinger’ has been pulled out. As it says in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57;

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).

Paul’s confidence in the victory of Jesus our Savior was what made it possible for him to give his all to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of His gospel—even though it cost him dearly to do so, and even though many around him were drawing back from him out of fear. It will also give us courage—if we keep our eyes on our victorious Savior.

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And finally, Paul tells us that we will grow in courage for the gospel if we imitate godly examples of devoted faith. In telling Timothy this, he held himself up as an example to follow. He affirmed the fact that he had been appointed by the Lord to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher; and wrote in verse 12, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” In saying this, he was encouraging Timothy to follow his own example. What was the thing that Paul had committed to the Lord? It was his own spirit—his own destiny—his own ultimate fulfillment, security, safety, and joy that he might otherwise have sought to protect for himself by refraining from the preaching of the gospel. He handed all of that over to the Lord and trusted that He would keep it all for him. In doing this, Paul would have been an example to Timothy of taking seriously what the Lord Jesus Himself had said in Matthew 16:24-27;

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matthew 16:24-27).

And what was “the Day” that he looked ahead to in committing his all to the Lord Jesus’ safekeeping? It was the Day of the Lord’s return—when He would bring his reward with Him for those who faithfully trusted His gospel message and gave themselves over to its proclamation in this world. He was setting the example for Timothy in this too when he wrote near the end of his letter—in 2 Timothy 4:6-8;

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

And we too will grow in our courage if we keep dependent upon God’s enabling power, remember the sovereignty of God’s call, keep our eyes on our victorious Savior, and imitate such godly examples of devoted faith as Paul’s.

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So; there may be times when we’re tempted to be ashamed or embarrassed at the hostility of this world toward the message of the gospel. And there may be times when we may be tempted to hold back from devotion to Him as a result. But we don’t have to be either ashamed or hold back. We truly have every reason to be courageous in giving ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord Jesus and His message of love to this world. Let me close by sharing a story we find in the Book of Acts. It’s told to us about two other apostles—Peter and John. After the Holy Spirit had come upon them at Pentecost and empowered them, they boldly preached the gospel of Jesus in Jerusalem. Multiple thousands of their Jewish kinsmen were believing and were being added to the church. But the Jewish religious leaders and officials commanded them to stop. They threatened them, and physically beat them, and ordered them not to speak any longer in the name of Jesus—then they let them go. And in Acts 5:41-42, we’re told;

So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ (Acts 5:41-42).

That’s a pretty remarkable kind of courage—that they would rejoice that they were counted ‘worthy to suffer shame for His name’! And we will grow in that kind of courage too—the courage to give our all to the gospel with confidence and joy, even in the midst of a hostile world—if we keep true to these courage-building habits.

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¹Epaischunomai in the aorist passive subjunctive. AE AE