3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
6 The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.
Introduction
The apostle Paul is calling us to that hardness of life that is able to endure its difficulties and its hardships when he writes in the book of 2 Timothy 2:3, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Now that verse is the introduction to a clear call to a complete and wholehearted commitment to the cause of Jesus Christ.
It seems that Timothy was timid and retiring in his approach to the Gospel ministry. And the apostle Paul was always trying to spur him on to greater intensity, to a deeper dedication. So he began in chapter 1 by saying to Timothy, “I want you to stir up the gift of God that is in you.” God had obviously given to Timothy certain gifts, certain abilities, certain talents to do his work. But Timothy was not making the most of those. And so Paul wrote to say to him, “You fan again to flames, you cause to burn deep within you those gifts and those abilities that God has given to you so that you can serve him effectively.”
He encourages Timothy, “Do not be ashamed of me, nor of the Gospel that I preach.” And this young man who had such a tendency to back off into a corner to be quiet, to not do what he ought to do for the cause of Christ. He was in continual need of encouragement to give his all, to give his highest and his best to Christ. And Paul comes in this passage of scripture to give one of the clearest and most concise calls to complete commitment to Jesus Christ that you will find in all of scripture.
As Paul does that, he uses three very familiar analogies. He uses the analogy of a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. He begins in verse 3 by saying, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” And then he tells us in the next verse what it means to be a good soldier. At least in part it means that a man lives a life of separation and a life of subordination. “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life.” He has to separate himself from the normal endeavors of life if he is going to be a good soldier. He subordinates himself to the command of his officer so that he may obey him and do what he wants him to do. Paul is saying to Timothy, “Timothy, you need to be like a soldier. You need the dedication of a soldier.”
In the next verse he says, “ And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” He is talking in that verse about an athlete. And he says an athlete must strive. He must exert himself lawfully, according to the rules of the contest. If he does not obey the rules of the contest, he will be penalized or he will be disqualified. Only the man who plays according to the rules can ever hope to win and can ever hope to receive the victor’s crown. Paul is saying, “Timothy, you need not only the dedication of a soldier, you need the discipline of an athlete.”
And then in the next verse he says, “The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.” Now the word husbandman literally means a tiller of the soil. So he is talking about a farmer. And he is saying that only the farmer who works hard will reap a good harvest.
You put them all together and this is what Paul is saying to Timothy and he is saying to you and me: “Complete and wholehearted commitment to Jesus Christ demands that we have the dedication of a soldier, the discipline of a athlete, and the diligence of a farmer.” And if we will give that kind of dedication and that kind of discipline and that kind of diligence to the cause of Christ, then we will be the kind of followers that he wants us to be.
The whole purpose of the message is not to tell you about Timothy, but rather to call you to that same kind of commitment. To ask you to be dedicated to Christ, like a soldier is dedicated to his country. To ask you to discipline yourself in the service of Christ like an athlete disciplines himself to win. To ask you to be diligent in the cause and the work of Christ, like a farmer must be diligent if he expects to reap a good harvest. And if at the end of this service someone here can decide in his heart, “I want to be dedicated to Christ and disciplined for Christ, and diligent in the work of Christ,” then what we hope to accomplish will have been accomplished.
1. Dedication. The first thing that commitment to Christ involves is dedication. And we need the dedication of a soldier. Paul says, “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
Now that analogy of a soldier for the Christian is one that is often used in scripture. He said to Timothy, “You war the good warfare.” He said on another occasion that Archippus and Epaphroditus are fellow soldiers for Christ. Paul considered himself a soldier and he spoke of those who helped him as fellow soldiers in the work of Christ. He wrote to the church at Ephesus, “Put on the whole armor of God.” And then he began to describe parts of the Christian life—Christian resources like prayer and faith and the word of God—as the various parts of the uniform and the weapons of a soldier. And he pictured the Christian as a soldier in an intense warfare for Christ and against Satan.
Now Paul comes in this passage of scripture to say that we need to be willing to suffer. We need to be wiling to endure the hardships and the difficulties of life for the cause of Jesus Christ. Paul points out two things in particular that mark a soldier. One is his separation from the ordinary endeavors of life and the second is his subordination to his commander-in-chief.
To be most effective for Jesus Christ, the Christian must concentrate upon his Christianity. Jesus talked about this in the parable of the soils. He told about a man who went forth to sow one day. And as he planted the seeds, as he cast them out in front of him by hand, some of the seeds fell on the hard and beaten pathway called the wayside. And the ground was so hard that it would not absorb the seeds and the birds came and ate them and there was no fruit produced there.
Some fell in stony ground, a thin layer of soil, and they sprouted for awhile and then those seeds died because there was no depth to the soil. And some of the seeds fell on the side of the fencerows and they sprouted and began to grow and in time the thorns also grew and they wrapped themselves around those tender plants and squeezed life out of them. Jesus described those thorns that squeezed the life out of the tender plants as the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this world. And he was saying to us, that if we are not careful, if we are not watchful, that we can become so involved in the business of life itself that the Gospel, that the things of God, that things in the spiritual realm, can literally be squeezed out of our life.
It takes an intense concentration for a person to live a committed life to Jesus Christ. The best things in life do not crowd. But other things come pressing in upon us and the first thing you know there is no time for prayer. There is no time for Bible study. There is no time for visitation. There is no time for Wednesday night prayer meeting. The best things in life are crowded out. Not intentionally, just because other things seem to be pressing down upon us and the first thing you know we have lost that kind of dedication that ought to mark a soldier of Jesus Christ.
Some of you fell out of prayer meeting and visitation and personal Bible study and daily prayer in exactly that same way. You never intended it to happen but other things pressed in upon you and crowded out the best. It always happens that way. We need, like a soldier, to not become so entangled in the affairs of this life that the spiritual part of life loses its vitality and its intensity with us. There has to be a subordination. Our purpose is always to please him who hath called us to be a soldier. We know who that is—it was Jesus Christ who called us.
Those of us who are Christians at one time or another in our lives heard the call of Jesus. Some were young and some were old. Some were at a camp. Some were in a vacation Bible school and some were in a revival meeting. In all kinds of places and at all ages of our life there came a call from Jesus Christ, to enroll, enlist in his service, become a soldier for him. We answered that call. Now the intense purpose of our life is that we might please him who called us to be a soldier. That we might come to the end of our way and hear him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
The kind of dedication Paul is talking about is the kind that separates itself from those things that choke out the spiritual intensity of life and those things that keep us from subordinating our will to the will of the heavenly Father.
General Patton asked a young soldier one day, “Soldier, what is the first duty of a soldier?” He said, “Sir, the first duty of a soldier is to die for his country.” Patton said, “No, no, no, the first duty of a soldier is not to die for his country, it is to make the enemy die.” His first duty is to live for his country. And Paul is calling upon us to live for Jesus Christ and that involves separation and subordination. We need the dedication of a soldier.
2. Discipline. Paul moves on so that we can catch the larger picture. We need not only the dedication of a soldier, we need the discipline of an athlete. He said the man who wins the crown is the one who strives lawfully. He plays by the rules. In all probability he had in mind the Olympic Games. And in those ancient games, there was an intense time of preparation in advance to the games and then a need for discipline to play by the rules once the game started. In fact an Olympic athlete at the beginning of the games had to stand before a statue of Zeus and swear that for 10 months he had rigidly exercised and disciplined himself to be a part of those contests. The casual athlete could not be a part of the Olympics.
And then when the time for the games came he had to play by the rules. So there was discipline involved in the preparation and in the participation on the part of the athlete. We know that’s true today. In fact I suppose that the greatest example of discipline in modern day America, and it is tragically so, are to be found in the field of athletics. Men will discipline themselves more for athletic honor and financial reward than for seemingly anything else. Maybe it has always been that way.
That’s why Paul picks up that analogy and brings it over into the spiritual realm to say, “Listen, you need discipline of an athlete in your Christian life.” The discipline that he puts into his preparation, the discipline that he puts into his participation. You need them to be the kind of disciple the Lord Jesus wants you to be.
Somebody has said that the most important thing in your usefulness is not your IQ but your into. How much are you into Bible study? How much are you into praying? How much are you into visitation? How much are you into ministry for the cause of Christ? Ultimately your usefulness and your successfulness in the cause of Christ will depend more on your into than on your IQ. You see if we are as disciplined as we ought to be, then we will be into the things that really matter.
3. Diligence. You need to be dedicated like a soldier. You need to be disciplined like an athlete. And then Paul closes by saying, “You need to be diligent like a farmer.”
The husbandman, the tiller of the soil, must first be partaker of the fruits. It is only the farmer who does his work well, who works hard, who will gather good crops. And Paul is saying we need that same kind of diligence, that same kind of hard work in the cause of Christ. It is a part of what it means to be consecrated to him.
Now there can be some glory in a soldier’s victory. There can be some glory in an athlete’s conquest and championship. But there is not much glory in farming. There is a lot of sweat, a lot of hard work, a lot of long hours. And Paul is saying that we need that kind of diligence in the Christian warfare.
I once gave the Founder’s Day address at the Buckner Benevolence church. And in preparation for that Founder’s Day address I read the life of faith and works of R. C. Buckner, an early Baptist preacher here in Texas who founded Buckner’s orphans’ home and all the other various ministries that grew out of that orphans’ home. He was a great and good man of God. But he said on one occasion, “I pulled, but I never kick.” Now that was his way of saying, “I am involved in the work. I am diligent in my work, but I am cooperative in my spirit.” And as I read that, I said to myself, that’s the need of the cause of Christ in the local church and all across our convention today. People who pull but never kick. It is hard to pull and kick at the same time.
Paul is saying the person who is committed whole-heartedly to Jesus Christ is a person who is pulling his share of the load, not kicking at the traces. And some of you will understand what that means.
The dedication of a soldier. The discipline of an athlete. The diligence of a farmer. That’s to mark our Christian service.
I once met Glenn and Marie Ross at while doing missionary work in Belize. Glenn had been a pastor for 40 years. After he retired he and Marie gave a year to service in Belize when they were both almost 70 years old. Otis Brady and his family were on furlough in the States, and somebody needed to oversee the work while he was gone. I said to Glenn, “Why did you decide to come here to Belize and give a whole year of your life without any pay?” He said, “Well, for years we gave our money to missions, now we have decided to give our life.”
I think Paul is saying that to you and me. The cause of Christ is worth your life. We cannot win the world with pocket change and part-time commitment. If we are going to win the world, it is time that we not only give our money, but our life itself in wholehearted commitment to the Lord Jesus.
Some of you have heard of R. S. Jones. He was a longtime missionary in Brazil. The Joneses had two children. Their daughter, Kathleen, grew up to do missionary work as a surgeon. Their other child, a boy, died and was buried in Brazilian soil.
In time the tropical diseases took their toll on the body of R. S. Jones and he and his wife had to come back to the States to recuperate. And during that time here in the States he was visiting one day with B. B. McKinney, a great songwriter. He wrote many of the hymns that you have in your hymnal that we sing from time to time. And as R. S. Jones and B. B. McKinney talked, McKinney said to him, “Well, R. S., what are you going to do next?” And he said to B. B. McKinney, “Well, I really don’t know except I know this: wherever he leads I’ll go.” And B. B. McKinney took that inspiration and wrote the great hymn we often sing as a hymn of invitation. “Wherever he leads, I’ll go.”
Paul is making that kind of appeal to our hearts today. Have the dedication of a soldier. The discipline of an athlete. The diligence of a farmer. And wherever he leads, go.