1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;
4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;
5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.
6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:
11 Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
12 For the which cause 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 that which I have committed unto him against that day.
13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
14 That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
15 This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
16 The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:
17 But, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.
18 The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
Introduction
In all of this book Paul is encouraging Timothy, motivating Timothy, spurring Timothy on to do all that he ought to be doing for Jesus Christ. In verse 6 is his first admonition, “Do the best you can with what you’ve got, where you are for Jesus today.” In the next few verses is his second admonition … “be not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his servant.” The third admonition in this chapter is, “That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.”
Now how is Paul going to encourage and inspire Timothy to do all those things? Well, he does it by a plain statement of challenge. But he does it also by example. Paul singles out four individuals who serve as examples to Timothy of the kind of faith and the kind of faithfulness that he needs to have. He begins by talking about Timothy’s grandmother and then he talks about his mother, two marvelous ladies in his life.
His grandmother Lois and mother Eunice had an unhypocritical, sincere, genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Paul reminds Timothy of the faith of his grandmother and his mother as he challenges him to do his very best for Jesus. Then he reminds Timothy of his own life and his own example. He says for the cause of the Gospel, “I am in bonds, I am a prisoner; nevertheless I am not ashamed of the Gospel. I have told you, do not be ashamed of the Gospel nor of me, the servant of Jesus Christ. Now I want you to know that I am in jail, suffering because I have been preaching the good news of Jesus Christ..” Paul uses his own life as an example. And then he comes to the end of this chapter to give Timothy another example of a man who risks very much in order to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ. And that man is Onesiphorus. He stands as the fourth example Paul singles out to challenge and to inspire Timothy to do his best for Jesus Christ.
He begins this challenge and this example against the blackness of abandonment. Paul says in verse 15, “Timothy, you know very well that all of those who were in Asia have turned away from me.” Obviously there were many Christians in Asia who no longer were followers of the apostle Paul and no longer following Jesus Christ. And then he names two men, Phygelus and Hermogenes, as leaders of that group. Now we do not know anything about these men except what is stated right here. But the very fact that Paul singles them out and calls them by name obviously means that he had a strong personal disappointment in them. Probably they were men who had begun to follow him at the height of his success and then when there were troubles, when there were hardships, they turned away from him.
They deserted him, they were fair-weather followers and Paul was strongly disappointed in them. They probably had a great deal of potential, leaders among the group. But they, along with other people, ceased to follow Paul. And he was discouraged. He was down because of this. After all he was in prison, locked up in bonds and unable to be up and about preaching the Gospel. There was the strong possibility as he mentions later on in this book that he would lose his own life. If those two things were not enough to discourage a man, here he learns of the Christians in Asia. And in particular he is discouraged that these two men whom he believed so very much in were defecting from faith. They were no longer following after him. They were no longer following Jesus. Paul was discouraged.
The apostle Paul was a man of dauntless courage. He was a man of amazing faith, but the apostle Paul could get discouraged, he could get down, he could be disappointed just as we can. Nobody is immune to those kinds of moods, to those feelings of depression and disappointment and discouragement.
But the man named Onesiphorus often refreshed his spirit. And that word refreshed is a beautiful word. It means “to put fresh breath into.” It means to brace up. Paul said, “There I was-in prison, discouraged, depressed, despondent, and along came Onesiphorus and he was like a breath of fresh air to me. My spirits were lifted and they soared when this man came to minister to me.” It wasn’t easy for him to do that, Paul says. “For he sought me out and he had to do that very diligently. It was not easy to find me and he looked and he looked until he found me. He paid a personal visit to me and he was not ashamed of my bonds.”
Obviously there were some who were ashamed of Paul when he was locked up in prison. When Paul saw that this man was not ashamed of him and he took the time to find him and to come to him, it just lifted his spirits unto God. And so he prays this prayer, “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus” (2 Timothy 1:18).
Now as Paul reviews the life of Onesiphorus he began with the most recent thing that this man had done for him. He refreshed his soul. And then he moves back in the clock of his memory to earlier events. Before he could refresh Paul, Onesiphorus had to not be ashamed of Paul’s bonds, his chains. Onesiphorus had to accept this man in spite of the difficulties he was going through and before he accepted him he sought him out diligently and found him and even before that Paul says, “You remember back in Ephesus you used to minister unto me.” And in his mind as he thought about this great Christian man he just went back to one event after another that indicated the kind of man he was. He holds Onesiphorus up to Timothy as a shining, stirring example of Christian service. And as he attempts to motivate this young man to do his best for Jesus Christ he says, “Let me tell you about another man who did his best.”
Onesiphorus stands not only as an example to Timothy, he stands as an example to you and me today. And if we will look at his life there is much we can learn about our service and our ministry for the Lord Jesus today.
1. The ministry we need.
The first thing I want you to notice about this man Onesiphorus is that he was able to give to other people the encouragement that they needed.
I mentioned that word refreshed. Paul said that is what he did. He often refreshed me. He was the kind of man who could encourage others. When their spirits were sagging he could come along and fix them up. When they were ready to give up and quit he could put fresh breath into them. And Paul said that is exactly what he did. He came to encourage me in a time when I desperately needed him. And he didn’t do that just once but he refreshed Paul often. He did that again and again. He did it frequently.
Obviously it was a habit of his life to find people who needed encouragement, to find people who were down, to find people who needed inspiration. Paul says that even back in Ephesus a long time ago, in another town, in another church, in another situation, he often ministered to me. And this man, who had made it the habit of his life to inspire and to encourage, came to this apostle—a man of dauntless courage, a man of amazing strength—who needed somebody else in a moment to help him and brace him up. Onesiphorus put fresh breath into Paul.
I hope you know that all around us there are people who need that kind of ministry. There are people who are discouraged and they are defeated by life itself. They may not be locked up in a physical dungeon or prison like the apostle Paul, but their lives are in chains. They are in bondage. They are in slavery to some situation that controls and dominates them and they see no way out. In the midst of that darkness of hopelessness they need somebody like you, somebody who may never be mentioned again in history like Onesiphorus but who can come and stand by them in this time of need and put an arm of encouragement around their shoulder and lift their sagging spirits. Discouragement is so very prevalent among us and it is one of Satan’s weapons in rendering us ineffective in the service of God. The first thing Satan wants to do in the life of any person is to keep them from becoming a Christian. But if he cannot keep you from becoming a Christian he will try to keep you from having any assurance of your salvation.
You know a Christian without assurance of his salvation is about as useless, about as ineffective as a person who has no salvation for he can never be joyous and he can never be positive and he can never be aggressive. If Satan can’t keep you from being saved he’ll try to keep you from knowing for sure that you are saved. And if he can’t do that, then he will try to bring circumstances and events into your life that will so discourage you, so depress you, so overwhelm you that you are caught up in self-pity and in hopelessness and thus you are rendered ineffective in the service of God. Without salvation, without the assurance of salvation, without the joy and happiness that ought to characterize the people of God, we can never do much for him. But to every one of us is given the privilege of being an Onesiphorus, to brace somebody up, to be like a breath of fresh air in their lives. It’s the encouragement people need.
2. The diligence we must show.
There is a second thing about this man and that is his diligence in meeting that need. Paul says that Onesiphorus sought him very diligently. That suggests that he paid a personal visit to Paul. There are a lot of things you can do for people to encourage them and inspire them over the telephone or by writing a letter or sending a card. There are many things you can do at a distance for people. But there are some things that can be accomplished only when you go directly to them. And so Paul suggests to us that Onesiphorus sought him out and paid a personal visit.
It wasn’t easy for him to find Paul. Onesiphorus was a stranger to Rome and he didn’t know his way around. And even if he had been familiar with the city, Paul was locked up in an inner prison. In his first imprisonment in Rome, Paul was allowed the privilege of renting a house and he had a great deal of liberty. He was locked and chained to a Roman guard at all times, but his house was open and Christians could come and go and he could witness and he could write and he could preach. He had many opportunities even though he was in bonds. But this second imprisonment was altogether different. He was taken into an inner prison and many of the Christians did not even know where he was. It took a lot of effort for Onesiphorus to find him, to seek him out so that he could make a visit that the apostle Paul so desperately needed.
If you are interested in being a minister for Jesus Christ, I want you to know that it takes a lot of hard work. A lot of people have illusions about the ministry, about serving God and they think it is an exciting and glorious thing all of the time. They forget that if you are going to serve him and meet the needs of other people, it is a very demanding task. It requires sacrifice on your part and it cannot be done easily. But out there in your neighborhood and in the place where you work and those places where you spend your leisure time there are people who need you and the encouragement you can give. You cannot give it without diligence, without effort, without sacrifice. And Onesiphorus stands as an example of a man who was willing to pay the price to accomplish what needs to be done.
3. The acceptance necessary.
There is a third thing. Before Onesiphorus could make the visit and lift the spirit of Paul, he had to first accept him. And so Paul declares that Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul’s bonds. There are a lot of people who will accept you when everything is going well. When you are successful in business, when your marriage is supposedly healthy and well, when you physically are strong and active—in those good times of life they will accept you, but when the tables are turned and you are not as successful as you once were, or you are having trouble in your marriage, or your health is failing, there are a lot of folks who will forget about you. They don’t find it quite as easy to accept you, to count you as a part of their group of friends, and to reach out and minister to you as at other times. It is so easy to forget.
But Onesiphorus was the kind of guy who didn’t forget. And Paul says while others were ashamed of his bonds Onesiphorus was not. That word ashamed is used three times in this first chapter. In fact it may be the key word in all the epistle of 2 Timothy. Paul uses it the first time when he says, “Timothy, I don’t want you to be ashamed of the Gospel or of me.” Then Paul says, “I was not ashamed and I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” and then he says, “Here is a man who is not and was not ashamed of me. I’m an example of how you ought not to be ashamed of the Gospel. And Onesiphorus is an example of how you ought not to be ashamed of the servants of Jesus Christ. He is an example of the way we need to accept other people.”
Risky business, you know, to accept Paul to the point that you sought him out diligently, made that personal visit, and encouraged him. Paul was a criminal or at least he was charged with criminal activity. And to be about the city of Rome asking about a man who was in jail was not the safest thing to do. And then to go and visit that man charged with criminal activities and to go again and again and again was to so identify yourself with him. If the time ever came that they wanted to make more arrests you would be the next in line. It wasn’t the safest thing to identify with a man in trouble. But Onesiphorus accepted Paul and made that visit and lifted Paul’s spirits.
That is exactly what we need to do. That’s the kind of person we need to be. Paul said, “I pray, I trust that God will grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus.” He is praying only for the fulfillment of Jesus’ words, of Jesus’ promise: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” This man was merciful unto me, now dear Lord, be merciful unto him in that day. And whenever the Bible uses that phrase “in that day” it is talking about the day of accounting. Paul is talking about that day of reckoning that is going to come when all of us shall stand before our Lord and we shall give an account for our concern or our indifference, for our ministry or our lack of it. He is saying, “Lord, when he stands before you, remember the mercy he has shown and show mercy unto him.”
You know of course that is the way the Lord is going to do it anyhow. He will judge you the same way you judge other people. It ought to cause us to be a whole lot more loving and accepting. Friend, when I stand before him, I want a lot of love and a lot of acceptance. It ought to cause me to be merciful and less judgmental of others because when I stand there I want mercy and not justice.
I’m always amazed how again and again the Bible introduces and dismisses a man from the stage of history with just a simple sentence or two—Phygelus, Hermogenes, Onesiphorus—meet them and they are dismissed in a sentence. If a one-sentence verdict were written about your life, would it say that you are traitor to the cause of Christ or a true friend to him?