Guard the Treasure Through the Spirit

Okay, everybody's got this guy. Question four. Why don't we read verse 13? 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 13. And maybe just go ahead and read 13 to 14. We'll get rolling there. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you. And can you read 15 too? You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom were... I'll give this homogeny. Homogenies.

I tried to practice them, but... So, there... so... Remember, Paul is in prison. He... He's at the end of his life. And he's passing on a deposit. He's giving Timothy essentially safeguarded truth that he holds while in prison. And I was talking to Emoryn a little bit about this last night. I mean you can imagine hearing the hoof prints and the Roman guards all along the top of the prison and he's chained. So In these moments, he's passing something to a younger man, to Timothy.

And question four says, what do the words, in the faith, express? Paul is passing something extremely important to Timothy. This question, what do the words in the faith express? So, you think about all that we go through, all the circumstances that we deal with, the things that we pray for this morning, the things that you're dealing with, the things that I'm dealing with, and Paul has the mindset to pass along and guard and deposit the things that he's deposited in the Lord, and now he's depositing them in Timothy.

Why is he doing that? What does this, in the faith, express for Paul? What do you think? What was his attitude towards the word that he received from God? I would say that they're precise and they're accurate in terms of what God wanted those members of his body, Christ's body, to know specifically from him, unadulterated by man's opinion. He wants clarity. And when he uses the term, I think, the faith, he's talking about the composite of the information that Paul got from the Lord Jesus and has been teaching for 30 years now.

What is the word faith combined with in this verse? What do you see there? Love. I remember studying Ephesians many years ago here at Holly Hills and we use the term truthing and love. And the words in faith and love here It's an exhortation from Paul to hold fast to truthing in love. What do you think that means? Can I just sidetrack for a minute? Please.

I'm not sure it says the faith, which in my mind indicates the sum of doctrine. If it's in, you know, like you're saying, in faith and love, that seems more personal in Christ Jesus, you know, conveying that rather than the doctrine in Christ Jesus. I don't know if that's even important. Can you fact check that? There isn't one in front, actually, in the Greek. So, Doyle, I think this is what Don is saying.

It's in faith, in love. It's an attitude of proclamation of the truth. I think the important part is the latter part of that. It's in Christ. Where are faith and love? It's in Christ. I think that's kind of the important modifier to this, or I don't know the English part of it, the grammar, but it seems like the important parts, which are in Christ, faith, you know, what is it? Truth and love were realized in Christ. You know, there are other verses I could look up, but truth came, is in Christ. And so I think he's saying more, not the whole doctrine, but truth are realized in Christ. And he's telling Timothy to hold fast to this. Now, he's definitely had his own experiences and he's passing along this letter to Timothy and he's saying, hold fast in the faith and love.

Why would those, and I want to come back to what both of you are saying, but It's like two rails on the same track. They go together. And we're going to read about the names that we just have a hard time pronouncing. Homogenies and the other guy. But when we read ahead a little bit, this whole Ephesus, Asia, area was radically leaving everything that Paul had deposited in terms of the truth. He had given Timothy, and he's saying, they're leaving. They're going to jet. They're not going to hold fast.

But I want you to hold fast in faith, and I want you to truth in love. I want you to hold fast to the truth. That's the atmosphere that he was dealing with he knew that he was going to be facing a complete departure of the faith And he's telling him hold fast Hold the sound doctrine stick to the word Don't depart Truth and love What is that what do you think that how does that impact our ministry and suburbia Denver. How do you hold vast truth like Paul was charging Timothy with?

And is in Christ conditional or positional language? Where does he say guard your heart here? Guard the truth of God's word that I've given to you. Where does he say to hold that? Where's the atmosphere that Paul charges Timothy with? It's positional. And to Corny's point, it's in Christ. Stay there. Hold fast. Center yourself there. Faith and love were not worked up in Timothy. They're found where he already stands, in Christ. So, going back to the question, what do the words in the faith express?

That's Mike's question. I'm looking on the Blue Letter Bible. Here's what he says. I thought this was good. Conviction of the truth of anything, belief in the New Testament of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things generally included the idea of trust, holy fervor born of faith and joined with it. I like that. Fervor? Fervent. I like that word. Let's read verse 14. I'm going to read Weiss, I think the expanded translation. We're moving into question 5 and I'm going to touch on what you said there.

We says, and he translates this, the good thing which was committed in trust to you, guard through what? The Holy Spirit. Who indwells you. So he's saying hold fast in faith and love, truthing and love. Everyone's going to depart. Hold fast. Be mindful of this. And realize, Timothy, that this is guarded through the Holy Spirit which indwells you. Timothy doesn't guard it.

So he's talking about personal faith here, don't you think? I think so. To Donna's point. Yeah. I think he is. Even though in English the definite article is there, it probably shouldn't be there. I would need to get that a little bit closer probably, but.

Guard the treasure. So what is the treasure? And how is it guarded? And this applies to you, not just Timothy. Question five, what is the treasure? What's the most valuable thing anyone has ever entrusted you to keep safe? God's word. I think you're right. You're sitting here listening to Sunday morning, Sunday school, and you've been entrusted. And Justice Timothy, been asked to guard. How do you do that? Is it up to you? Well, for Timothy, it wasn't.

It was only guarded by the Holy Spirit that can dwelt him. Do you have the Holy Spirit? So the words, the treasure which has been entrusted to you, I'm reading from the notes, refer to the form of sound words, the deposit of truth committed to Timothy by Paul.

And if we expand the Greek on that, it's the beautiful deposit entrusted to you. You think, well, I don't have much. Or maybe you do. Maybe you have some stuff stored away. But what's the most beautiful deposit entrusted to you as a believer? What is a deposit? That word, paratheke. My best version of that. Something placed into another's keeping for safekeeping. Because this is banking language.

Does the deposit still belong to the depositor? Say that again. Does the deposit still belong to the one who deposited it? Think of banking. You put your money in a bank. You FDIC, you trust them. To do what? They don't do anything but answer for the deposit that you placed in their keeping. They have to answer for that. They trust it. They keep it. So, the treasure is the same thing in verse 13, just named. It's the pattern of sound words, the deposit of truth. That's what Paul is depositing in Timothy for safekeeping. Is that the same for you?

So would you say the Holy Spirit's the banker? That's interesting, because He's a guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. It's through Him, the treasure that's been entrusted to you. So there's a dependency there on the Spirit of God to do what God has sent him to do, and not dependence on... Dependence is not so much on the treasure of the words, it's on the Spirit of God who will guard them. So maybe he's the safe. Yeah. I mean, this is banking language. Safe deposit box. Yep. So, what does Holly Hills do with that? I think they take it seriously. I think we should. Yeah. And I think we do.

And I think that's the reason why we're getting specific around these verses, because there's no accountability without ownership here. But the Holy Spirit is the one that keeps it. You know, in my weird brain, you know, I think of this, you know, the Holy Spirit's the one who guards us, or guards, but looking at the guard is a heiress active. We are to do this. And it's what, like, heiress.

I'm going into the future. Continuing, but then I think of how many believers who misinterpret Scripture or, you know, a Reformed believer. They're a believer, but they have not, you know, the sound words. They haven't taken the sound words. And I'm thinking, it's still up to us to guard it. You know what I mean?

Because somebody who misinterprets Scripture still has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But the active part is we are to guard it through the Holy Spirit. And there's some part of us that is the active part in this guarding. Because, I mean, what happens with a believer who misinterprets Scripture?

He's got the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So there's some responsibility on our part in this, even though the banker and the safe are the Holy Spirit. We are actively participating in this. Well, Paul's telling Timothy to guard. Right. So that's my point. We have the best banker in the world. We have the best safe in the world. What is the opposite of guarding? What does it look like in Christianity today?

I would use the word drift. You let a little bit of some other thought creep in and drift away. That was all 1 Timothy. That was 1 Timothy. But don't drift, don't do, guard, you know, same thing, guard the word. You know, it's just, same emphasis now, same thing. Same thing. Mike? I was reading this week, rereading Lewis Barry Chafer's book, He That Is Spiritual. A really incredible book.

And he made a distinction between a preacher and a teacher. He said a teacher is this guy right here. that it's his responsibility to make sure he's really accurate, word for word, the grammar, where a preacher can kind of take a little license. He gets up and he interprets. But if God calls you to be a teacher, which Timothy as an elder is, And Paul is the accuracy, so it puts a responsibility, I think, through the Spirit. You've got to always make sure that what you think it says and you did your homework and you looked it up and you're dependent on the Spirit of God to teach you. as you're working through it. And that's his job. He'll do that as a teacher. Look at question six. It rolls right into what you're saying.

How important was guarding or keeping the truth? That word, phalasso, so, to guard, to watch, to defend. Do you know what a sentry is? With an S? It's a guard. Paul knew about these guys, and so did Timothy. Essentially, it's the soldier posted at night, watching a gate or a wall, defending what's inside. And that's the word that's used here. He's awake while everybody else is sleeping. Why is he awake? Because he's forced to be? Or because he believes that something is valuable inside the gate and it's under threat and he's keeping watch?

And that's that same verb that Paul uses here. And also in 1.12. Someone read 2 Timothy 1.12. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard that which I have entrusted to him until that day. That's that language. Paul was entrusted with this word, and now he's entrusting it to Timothy.

And you're in the same boat. I mentioned before, and love, and faith, and love, and that's where that love comes in, I think, is that guarding. the two rails, not just banging out truth to your neighbor. You're loving and truthing at the same time. Truthing and love.

Done it? Well, and the goal is knowing Jesus Christ first of all, right? That I know whom I believe. There's got to be a goal other than we have sound doctrine, but it has to go to Jesus Christ. That's a really good point, because a lot of times when we think about, we've got to stay sound in our doctrine. You know, we're a Bible church. But what are we, what's the point of the truth? It's a person. It's him. So to read the notes, keep or guard, to guard, watch, defend. Timothy is to guard, watch, and defend the truth once for all delivered to the saints.

In view of the defection from the truth that was even then in its inception in the early church. We're not in the early church. You think truth is still being attacked? And by the way, that's personal. It's not just the scripture itself. It's the living word. The treasure refers to truth, which Timothy is to guard. While truth in itself is very potent, it must be remembered that it slips through our fingers very easily. You know what? Just from a standpoint of when this was written to Timothy, I think it succeeded, because we have the word today. You know, it succeeded in guarding it. You know, succeeded because we have the word today. And, you know, if you didn't guard it, because think of the early church who, you know, I always think about that.

They didn't have the Bible. You know, they had Paul's letters. They didn't have all of them. They had Timothy who would present all that Paul had taught him, which a lot we don't even have written. The Holy Spirit did guard the Word. And we have it today because of that. And I think that it's important. I just think, how did it make it through the early church and expand to today? You couldn't go, well, look at 2 Timothy 1, 12. Pull up the Bible app. The Holy Spirit was working in a mighty way through the early church. through these words, Timothy guarded the word and spread it. And Paul was very clear that there was a mass defection from the truth. That was already underway. So they couldn't look it up in the same way that we can, to your point. It had to be guarded.

And Paul is saying, the Holy Spirit is the one that guards this. And it's preserved for you. That gives me more, you know, the power of the Word, you know, today. Because it survived. It has been held for 2,000 years. And it still remains as powerful today as it was then. And that, to me, tells you the power of God's Word. It survived 2,000 years. Look at the burning of Bible with the Nazis and all of that. And even today, persecution is being... But it survives. Yeah, it'll survive. Which, again, the power of the Word. Paul and Timothy, in their time, had a very real enemy to the Word.

Do you have a real enemy today? How does that work? Let's see, there's news, internet, social media. So how do you guard the Word of God? I think verse 12 answers that. He who is able. but it's been entrusted. Well, that's what I was saying, the active part of guarding. We're to guard it through the Holy Spirit. We're to guard His Word. We're the ones who keep it going, too. And it's a beautiful treasure. That's what the Scriptures say there. Guard the treasure which has been entrusted to you. Again, it's banking language, but it slips away so easily. And it just, it kind of leaks. It's not just one moment. It just slowly gets diluted, right?

Well, this term sentry or guard, the idea here is that there is a protection of what is, where an enemy is attacking. And a century is posted around the clock. And Rome posted a guard on Paul, didn't he? He was under imprisonment. He had one of those guards watching him. But God posts Timothy on the truth. Isn't that interesting? Paul has a guard and he uses the same word to charge Timothy with the truth. Defend it. Guard it. Question seven. How in the world is Timothy supposed to accomplish this command? Is it a burden? Did Paul just, in his last days, say, I'm passing this off to you. It's your job now. You got to do this. This is what you got.

Was it a burden to Timothy? Is that how he saw it? Because if verse 14 ended at guard the treasure, Timothy is left basically performing, white knuckling this deposit that Paul gave to him in his own strength. You could see it that way, but that's not how it's written.

The notes say, he is to do this through the Holy Ghost which dwells in us. The word ghost is the translation here from the Greek word pneuma, which is rendered elsewhere as spirit. To dwell. The Holy Spirit which dwells in you. What does the word dwell mean? Does it mean visit? There's a lot of really great worship songs that would have the Holy Spirit visiting us. Inhabit. What's that? Inhabit. That's a great word too. The Spirit doesn't visit Timothy to guard the truth. He dwells. I think that Greek word enokeo is a really important word when you split it up because it says that. It does, to be at home. To be at home, that's what that word means. Do you think of the Holy Spirit at home? What if you don't feel like the Spirit is at home today? Does that change the truth? I do think it's one of those things, as you grow spiritually, that you become more accustomed to, in the sense that...

When you were talking a minute ago, I had the thought that there are a lot of Bible teachers that teach for their own aggrandizement. and they go to seminary so they can put the letters after their name and that kind of thing and it's all about them.

But you don't have a person with that attitude doesn't have a guarantee that you get here. The guarantee here is that Paul committed to the Lord and to the Spirit of God the keeping of the unadulterated truth. So he wasn't relying... I mean, he even says, hey, I'm a Pharisee, I'm a whatever I am, but that isn't how this works. When you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you learn over time to trust Him with what He teaches you and to safeguard the truth that you know so that you don't go down a tangent someplace.

When I feel convicted by the Spirit, when you feel convicted by the Spirit, do you feel at home with that conviction? It's a good way to put it. Because this word dwells in Ico. To be at home, it means to dwell in one and influence him for the truth, for good. So Paul's idea of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit here is that the normal expected attitude of the believer is to yield to cooperation with one who dwells at home with you. So we don't always feel that way. Again, I'm using the word feel for a reason. But is that not the Holy Spirit at home with you?

I think it takes time because we're taught from the day we become consciously aware that we're alive that we have to protect me. I have to learn about me. I have to do I, I, I, I, I. And then here comes God's Word that says, no, we crucified I, and we replaced him with myself, the Lord Jesus, and I indwelt you with the Holy Spirit. So this paradigm shift that's got to go on there takes time.

You may not do everything right, but there's an increasing dependency on the Spirit to do what God says He sent Him to do. There's a lot of the time where that happens and we fuss and fight through that. But that's not what's at home in us. The Holy Spirit is drawing us to yield. He's not fussing with you. He's bringing you along. Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. And that command comes with, it's like the power supply is attached. And every single believer has that, just as Timothy did. The Spirit doesn't rent some space in your heart. He's at home. And when we start feeling like this is, This is difficult. This is hurt. Like I'm hurting because I'm being convicted of the truth. And I know the truth, but I'm not yielding to it. The Holy Spirit is still at home. He's not impressing upon you something that is not for your good and safeguarding of the truth that He's revealing to you through the Word specifically.

And sometimes I wonder, you know, the indwelling Holy Spirit, why does He let me be really stupid? And it's all through the learning, and God allows us to do those things, for the learning process. But it's like, I've got the indwelling Holy Spirit, why am I an idiot sometimes? And it's like, but that's the learning process, the spiritual growth, and He allows that. And I go back to, sometimes, you know, I always draw from songs. same power in me, you know, the same power that did this is in me. How come I'm so stupid sometimes? You know, that same power and that same, you know, but it's a learning, growing reliance upon the Holy Spirit as you grow, you know, you understand that more and more about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

You know, just a reliance upon the word, reliance upon the spirit. But, you know, why doesn't he just direct, you know, direct me all the time from not being an idiot, you know? I think that sometimes we are hard of hearing. Yeah. And we're too busy telling someone what we know.

When we get uncomfortable in those situations, I think it's interesting to see, especially in these verses, that the Holy Spirit is guarding the Word for you. He's preserving it for you. And it's all about The Lord Jesus who loves you and is not trying to swoop in, swoop out, make you uncomfortable, give you the spiritual high moment. He's guarding it constantly. And that's where Paul is charging Timothy. What's interesting about the work of the Spirit and the previous faith and love, he's very sensitive and he always acts in love. So, I mean, like Courtney says, he'll show him something and you beat yourself up about it. But he didn't beat you up about it. You did it. He lets you go there. And he restores you in love.

So why do we find it so difficult to cooperate with the Spirit who is at home with us? It goes back to the same nature. Because that's a fussy place to be. It also goes back to faith. You believe what He says. You know, in faith and love. Well, we have to have faith in what He tells us is true in ourselves. You know, who we are in Christ. You know, we have to believe what he says, and that's all. The indwelling Holy Spirit, his job is to convince us in the truth of his word. And he lets us, I mean, God allows us to sin, God allows us to be an idiot, God allows us all those things, but it's all part of the process.

And it's not ever home, is it? It feels very uncomfortable. Timothy, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us the treasure which has been entrusted to you. I've just been reading Hebrews again. I love that. In chapter 4, verse 12, where the Word of God is alive. Just read it and look at that. That's what we're guarding. And it reaches... It's the double-edged sword, right? It reaches joint and marrow. It gets down to the very depth of us. while we're at time, let's pray.

Father, how we just are so thankful for these words that you had given to Paul and were entrusted to Timothy and entrusted to us. And Lord, we just pray that as we understand these truths, that you would guard our hearts, you stand in our hearts, You stand at the wall.

You ensure that our yielding and our cooperation with your love for us is your intention. And it's because of just that. You're gracious and your love is so wonderful. So Lord, we just pray that we would maintain that same understanding that Timothy had towards what Paul was given. That we would guard it. very, very carefully, knowing that it is the source of what sanctifies us, what brings us to yourself. And we're just so thankful for that. It's your name we pray.