This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to invite you to one of our weekend services. Visit us online at saddleback. com for locations and service times in your area. Please visit us this weekend. Congratulations! You have made it to the last day of our Look Together at Second Timothy. And if you've been with us for both books, First and Second Timothy, here we are, last chapter, last day, in powerful words. Verse 18, Paul says this, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack, and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. " What powerful faith Paul had, even in the face of possible death for his faith. The Lord will rescue me. What do you do when Satan's attacking you? When Satan attacks you, you take the offensive. Don't become defensive. You take the offensive. And how do you do that? When you're faced with an inner accusation, Satan's an accuser. When he accuses you inside, tells you what a rotten person you are, tries to remind you of all your old sin, tries to dredge it all up again. When you're faced with that kind of inner accusation, picture the cross. Picture what Jesus did for you. Colossians 2. 15 says, "God took away Satan's power to accuse you of sin. And God openly displayed to the whole world Christ's triumph at the cross, where your sins were all taken away. " So you don't have to be defensive against those accusations of Satan. You take the offensive. You picture the cross. And what do you do when you're faced with outer confrontation? As Paul was here, he was being attacked for his faith, not inside, but outside. Somebody had arrested him. He was in prison. He's possibly going to be killed for his faith. For you, that outer confrontation might be someone who is angry with you or someone who's not allowing you to be in their lives or someone who has rejected you or a job that you've lost or a job you haven't gotten. What do you do when you're faced with an outer circumstance, an outer confrontation? How do you take the offensive? You do what these verses say, this verse, verse 18. You picture yourself as rescued. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack. That's what it means that you're saved. One of the ideas of being, we talk about being saved by Jesus, is rescued. When somebody is saved from drowning, we mean we've rescued them from drowning. You have been saved from this world. God has rescued you into eternity. And that's what we look forward to. So you take the offensive. That's what Paul does at the very end of his life. Now, he could have closed the book with those words, but he always has something personal to say at the end. And he says it in verses 19 to 22. Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Anisiphorus, Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Do your best, he says, to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you and so do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers. The Lord be with your spirit, Paul writes to Timothy. Grace be with you. And that ends the book. Now, a lot of people wonder, Paul writes in verse 21, do your best to get here before winter. Did Timothy ever get there? We don't know from history, but if I know anything about people, if I know anything about faith, I cannot help but believe that he did, the close relationship that the two of these had. As we close our look together today at this book of 2 Timothy, I want to review, I want to go back over this book that's all about how you can be the kind of person who lasts. It's a book. 2 Timothy is a book about priorities. This book tells us that we should put first things first because first things last. They're the things that aren't going to fail us in the end. And as we've walked through this book, there are eight things that I am praying in your life and in my life that have gripped you and that will continue to grip you because they're the kinds of things that make you the kind of person that will last. What do I do in my daily life to last in my faith? These eight things. Number one, reject timidity. Not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, a spirit of love, a spirit of a sound mind of discipline before God. You reject living a timid life. You live a confident life of faith. This isn't about personality. This is about choice. Each and every moment of my life I have a choice. I can make the timid choice or I can make the faith choice. I can make the choice that doesn't believe or I can make the choice that does believe. And I'm going to last. I'm going to be the kind of person who lasts in faith as I reject timidity. And this book tells us how. Number two, you want to be the kind of person who lasts? Be strong in grace. Chapter two verse one told us that. Be strong in the grace that's yours in Jesus Christ. When someone asks you, what are you good at? One of the answers, at least that comes to your mind, whether you say it or not, is grace. What are you good at? I'm good at grace. And I want to be better and better at grace, leaning on God's grace, trusting God's grace, recognizing God's grace, living in God's grace, growing in God's grace, being changed by God's grace, transformed by his grace, looking forward to his grace for all eternity, grateful for his grace. Be strong in grace. That makes you the kind of person who lasts. You want to be the kind of person who lasts? Number three, you do what 2nd Timothy 2 says. You entrust what is valuable to those who are reliable. You take what God's done in your life and you tell somebody else. If you want to last, you got to help somebody else last. It's not just about you. It's about others too. If you want to last, if you want your message to last, your heart to last, your life to last beyond this life, obviously you got to trust it to somebody else. And then it lasts in two ways. It lasts in your life all the way into heaven, but it also lasts on their life still on earth as they're serving him. You entrust what is valuable to those who are reliable. You want to be the kind of person who lasts? Number one, reject timidity. Number two, be strong in grace. Number three, entrust what is valuable to those who are reliable. Number four, endure hardship. Endure hardship is a good soldier. I'm not going to last. You're not going to last if we try to escape hardship because you can't in this world. It's an endless pursuit. It's an empty pursuit. You're never going to get there. So you determine there's going to be some hardship in this life, but God can give me the strength, the peace, the power to endure hardship. That's what caused you to become a person who lasts. Number five, in chapter 2 verse 15, Paul says, "Here's a decision you can make to last. Do your best to please God. You live to please people, you're not going to last. You live even just to please yourself, you're not going to last. What do you give your very best to in life? That tells you who you're trying to please in life. People aren't pleasable. In the end, you're not pleasable. But God, he is pleased. He is pleased when you give your heart to him, when you live your life for him. So you do your best to please God. That causes you to be the person who will last. Chapter 2 verse 21, you want to be the kind of person who lasts? You cleanse yourself from all the things of the world that drag us down. Just wear your soul. You cleanse yourself. Now, how do you cleanse yourself? Not by yourself. You cleanse yourself by looking to him. You cleanse yourself by trusting in him. But that is your choice, your daily choice. Even as a believer in Christ, you can let your life become filled with all kinds of gunk. You can let your life become filled with all kinds of dirt and mud. And those things, you will not last. You will not last in faith in a way that continues to make a difference in life. You'll be the kind of person who knows Christ, and you may even have a genuine faith and you may be in heaven, but that faith is not going to keep influencing people's lives. That faith is not going to make the changes that God wants to work through your life. It's the person who lasts from beginning to end that the world sits up and takes notice. I want to be that kind of person. I don't know yet if I'm going to be. I haven't reached the end of my life. I want you to be that kind of person, but you don't know yet. How can I be sure? One of the things you've got to do is cleanse yourself. Ask God to cleanse you. You want to be the kind of person who lasts? There's a seventh thing that Paul talks about. It's all through the last part of chapter two and a lot of chapter three. You fight false teaching. You fight false teaching by, instead of arguing with false teachers, making that your goal, you just gently instruct them. You fight false teaching by living for the truth, by letting God's Word work in your life, the God-breathed Word work in your life through His reproof, through His correction, through His training in righteousness. You fight false teaching, and then you do an eighth thing. You want to last, number one, reject timidity. Number two, be strong in grace. Number three, entrust what is valuable to those who are reliable. Number four, endure hardship. Number five, do your best to please God. Number six, cleanse yourself. Number seven, fight false teaching, fight for the truth. And number eight, you look to the crown. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award to me and not only to me, but also to all those who have longed for His appearing. And that, that looking to the crown, that's what enables you to fight the good fight, to finish the race, to keep the faith. It's all about Jesus. Jesus looked to the crown. In Hebrews 12, we're told, "For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and now He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. " You look to the crown of where Jesus is in heaven. Jesus died on the cross, but as He died on the cross, He looked to the crown. How do you last? There's no better place to look for assurance than the cross of Jesus Christ. Assurance of God's love for you, assurance of forgiveness, assurance of eternal life, assurance of strength for living this brand new life that we just talked about. That's the core of it. Jesus died for you. Jesus lives for you. That enabled Paul to live the life that he lived, to bring the message that he brought so that you and I are reading it today. To come to the end of this book, let's pray that God will give us a life that lasts. Lord, this is a book, 2 Timothy, about last things, last hope and last instructions. It's a book about last days, last words, but it's also a book about us lasting in faith. Being the kind of people who live not just for a few months or weeks or even years, but from the moment we come to know Christ, we may have ups and downs, but we remain faithful. We may have struggles, but we keep trusting. We may have days when we want to give up, but we never give up. We may wonder sometimes what life holds for us, but we realize you always have a hold on us. Lord Jesus Christ, I pray for me, I pray for every one of us listening to this right now. Help me, help us to do these things in our lives so that we can have the joy of lasting in our faith, the joy that that will mean for our lives, the joy that that will mean for our eternity and the joy that that will mean for others who see what you can do in a life. Thank you, Jesus, for what you've done for us. Thank you for what you can do in us. In your name, we pray, amen. I am so glad you were with us for this study together, 2 Timothy, and I want to encourage you to stay with us for the next study we're going to do in drive time devotions, or you might want to go to drivetimedevotions. com, drivetimedevotions. com. You can see all the books that we've studied and pick the next one that you want to do yourself. Either way, we'll see you for the next book in drive time devotions.