Christ is able to guard what I have entrusted to him. He’s able to guard what I have entrusted. So there has been an act of entrusting on the part of the Apostle Paul. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick. And Colin, we can look at the Apostle Paul and see what he entrusted into Christ’s hands. But what does that mean for us? What should we entrust to Christ’s hands? Well, that list is very, very long indeed. I mean, we’re talking about your health, what relates to your own physical condition. You may need to trust that into the hands of Jesus Christ today. What about your family? What about your ministry? What about the way in which your gifts will be used? What about God’s providence for your future life and what the next chapter holds? All of these things are to be trusted into the hands of the Lord. And of course, ultimately, what a Christian does is we trust our whole eternity into the hands of Christ. But here’s the challenge. We seem to find it easier to trust our whole eternity into the hands of Christ than to trust the more immediate things that we’re facing. So today’s message is going to be a challenge. What do you need to trust into the hands of Jesus Christ today? Well, Paul’s giving us an example, and we’re going to run an inventory. Let’s do some trusting of Jesus as we get into the Word of God today. So today we’re going to be looking at the second epistle of Timothy, chapter one. As we begin our message, final security. Here’s Colin. The apostle Paul found himself in desperate circumstances. He was in prison. He knew that before long he would be put to death in Rome. His young assistant, Timothy, was inclined to panic. And so Paul writes this letter to Timothy to establish him in the faith and to encourage him in the Lord. And we’ve seen in these past weeks that in verses 8 to 11, the thrust of Paul’s message to Timothy is simply this, Timothy, whatever happens, remember you are a saved person. In Jesus Christ, he saved us. And Timothy, whatever happens, remember this, you are called to a holy life. That is what you must pursue in every circumstance, whatever. And Timothy, remember this, that whatever happens, your eternal destiny is in the presence of Jesus Christ, who has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And we’ve tried to picture Paul’s situation, described by William Hendrickson as being incarcerated in some dismal underground dungeon with a hole in the ceiling for light and air. And if you can try and imagine the apostle in this desperate circumstance, you would think that he might be saying, you know, where is God in all of this? You would think that he might be saying, I just can’t understand why God allows these things to happen in my life. But that is not what he is saying. Instead, what we find in chapter 1 in verse 12 is that he’s saying, Timothy, I want you to know that I am not ashamed for this reason. I know whom I have believed. You remember that reminded us that Christian faith is focused on a person, Jesus Christ. I know whom I have believed, not what or when. I know whom I have believed. It reminds us that a Christian has a living relationship with this person, Jesus Christ. I know him. I know whom I have believed. And we have confidence in this person. I know whom I have believed. I trust him. And my security doesn’t rest in the greatness of my faith, because my faith may not be very great at all. But it does rest on the greatness of the one in whom I have put my trust. I know him. I know whom I have believed. And so, Paul is telling his nervous friend that he is finding strength in the supreme competence of Jesus Christ, and that this is how the apostle is able to live with confidence in an uncertain and changing world. Now, that’s something of what we’ve learned from the verse so far. And I want us today to focus on the second half of the verse. I know whom I have believed. But then he says, I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. Now, this is wonderful, because Paul is telling us how knowing Jesus Christ is changing his life. And more than that, he’s telling us how knowing Jesus Christ can change our lives too. How’s that going to happen? Well, it’s all in the second half of this verse. Now, here’s how I’d like to approach this text. I want you to imagine yourself on the basketball court. And let’s just for effect imagine that it is the last minute of the seventh game in the NBA Finals. And you are under big pressure, and at this critical moment the ball is passed into your hands. And for a split second, you can see an open path all the way to the basket. So you know exactly what you have to do. You have to take one, two, three steps and get yourself airborne and slam dunk that thing with all of the strength that is in you. Now, for those of us who have never been able to get close to a slam dunk, I am asking you to use your imagination. But you get the picture. What we’re going to try and do this morning is to take three steps that will get you airborne and bring you to a position of victory that Paul was experiencing in his own life in very, very difficult circumstances. So here we go. Step one. I have committed everything to Christ. Now, you see what he’s saying here, if you look at this text, that Christ is able to guard what I have entrusted to him. He’s able to guard what I have entrusted. So there has been an act of entrusting on the part of the Apostle Paul. And the question, of course, then, is what has Paul trusted to Christ? And the answer, of course, is his whole self, everything about him. Body, soul, spirit, life, ministry, friends, everything, what I have entrusted to him. I find it helpful to put what Paul says here alongside the verse that we’ve just read, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23. Paul there says something very similar to what he says to Timothy. He says to the Thessalonians, may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you see, that reminds us that being a Christian involves committing your whole self to Jesus Christ and then Christ keeping what you’ve committed to him. And Paul says that includes body, soul, and spirit. Let’s think about body, which is the easiest one. Committing your physical life to God. James Denney, who writes very helpfully on this passage, says that what the Apostle prays for is that God would make the body in its entirety, every organ and every function of it, holy. He then says God made the body at the beginning. He made it for himself and it is his. To begin with, the body is neither holy nor unholy. It has no character of its own at all. It may therefore be sanctified or it may be profaned. It may be made a servant of God or the servant of sin. It may be consecrated or it may be prostituted. That’s James Denney. Now, the Apostle Paul, of course, speaks about this in Romans chapter 6 and verse 13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather, he says, offer the parts of your body to Christ as instruments of righteousness. So we’re being called as Christians to offer, to entrust our physical capacities into the hands of Jesus Christ. What that means is that I, as best I am able, offer my mouth to him and that means saying, Jesus, let what I speak be for your glory and the good of others. It means offering my hands, let what I do be for the advance of your kingdom. It means offering my feet. It means saying, Jesus, I am prepared to go any place that you send me, which is a position that all Christians should always be in. It means offering your eyes to Christ. Lord, let me be someone who sees need and is sensitive to it and then ready to reach out into it. It means offering your strength, your capacity to work. It means offering even your capacity for pleasure to him so that all things, even eating and drinking, for example, are done for the glory of God, that nothing is separated from this overarching purpose of life, that everything that I am physically is offered into his hands. And that’s where the Apostle Paul was. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, Final Security, it’s the last part of our series, One Thing I Know. That’s about Christian confidence in an uncertain world. And if you’ve missed any of the series, and today’s is the final part, you can always go back and listen again on our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk. There you can listen to any of the previously broadcast messages. You can also find our messages as a podcast. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to the podcast to receive regular updates. Open the Bible is able to bring you Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching on this station and on the internet through the financial support of people just like you. If you’re being blessed by Colin’s teaching, why not consider starting a new regular donation at the start of this year. In return for setting up a regular gift of £5 per month or more, we would love to thank you by sending you a gift in return. This month, our gift to you is a book, it’s Psalms by the Day, written by Bible scholar Alec Mottier. Full details are on our website, openthebible.org.uk. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. Think about committing your mental, emotional, and spiritual life to God. Now, there’s a long-standing debate, as many of you know, about the relationship between soul and spirit. Sometimes they seem to be the same. For example, in Mary’s song, do you remember the magnificat? My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour. Hebrew parallelism, it looks like they’re the same there. Sometimes they seem to be distinct. The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. That’s Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12. Well, if they’re like joints and marrow, it’s evident that even if they can be distinguished, they are pretty closely bound up together. I’ve found it helpful to think about soul and spirit as your inner life viewed from two sides. The soul speaks of your inner life in relation to your own experience of it. Your mind, your heart, your will, your imagination, your thoughts, your desires, your passions, your dreams. Your spirit may speak of that same inner life in relation to God, your faith, your love, your hope, your character, your perseverance. Have you committed your mind to God? Lord, here is this mind. Let it think under the authority of your Word. What about your imagination, your creativity? Lord, you are the creator. I give the creativity that you have given to me. Let it be used to create that which is good and that which is worthy of you. What about your hopes, your dreams? Now, throughout your life in this world, your body, soul, and spirit will be subjected to great strain. You will be tested, you will be tempted, you will face great trials, and sometimes you will wonder, how can I physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually stand up under the pressure of this? How in all the world will my faith survive? Now, here’s the marvelous truth. What you’ve committed to him, he will guard. Isn’t that good news? What you’ve committed to him, he will guard. What about ministry? Commentators on this letter point out that what Paul committed to the Lord was not just himself, but everything that pertained to his life, his ministry, his teaching, his evangelism, his church planting, his converts. I mean, here is a man who knows that he has only a short time left to live, and he’s going to leave behind this legacy of ministry, people who’ve come to Christ, and so forth, and he’s in this position where there is so much more that he would like to have done. And how is he to find peace? And he finds peace by committing his ministry into the hands of Christ. It’s all come from his hands in the first place. Lord, here is my life’s work I committed into your hand, knowing that you are able to keep what I have entrusted to you. Don’t you think that as Paul prayed for Timothy, the younger man, every day, that Timothy also was included in what Paul committed into the hands of Christ? Timothy, I have committed you into the hands of Christ, and I am convinced that he is able to guard you as he has guarded me. You know, it is a marvelous thing to be able to commit your loved ones into the hands of Christ, to have a son or a daughter who worries you so much, and to lift him and lift her into the hands into the hands of Christ. It’s an act of faith to say, Lord, I’m placing him there. One of the many joys that Karin and I had earlier this year in visiting Hong Kong was coming to know some wonderful, wonderful, wonderful missionaries. One of them, a lady by the name of Diane Lawrence, who served all of her life since she graduated from Moody here. She met her husband at Moody. They went out to serve the Lord in China. She is now in Hong Kong, lifetime of ministry. I believe, if I recall it, they were married around 10 years or something like that, and then he contracted a severe illness and died off it, and she has continued to serve the Lord as a widow ever since. She is now in, I would guess, her 50s. And she said to Karin and I when we were talking, she was recalling the whole experience of her loss and testifying to what Christ has done for her since. And she said, the last thing he said to me was, I’ve committed you into the hand of Christ, and he can take much better care of you than I ever could. And she said, I’ve proved that all these years. Timothy, I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he’s able to keep what I’ve committed to him against that day. Nothing in your hands can ever be secure. Everything in his hands must always be secure. That’s the principle. I hope this isn’t too trivial, but sometimes a picture makes a serious point. And just thinking about this through the week, my own mind went back to a game that was often played in birthday parties when I was very, very young. I don’t know if it’s well known here, pass the parcel. Did you pass the parcel? No, absolute blank expressions. No, no, no. Okay, I’ve got it. Absolute blank expressions. No, no, no. Okay, I have to explain pass the parcel. There are various rules, but this is how we played it. Okay. A prize, usually a large bar of chocolate or a big bag of candy, was wrapped many times. In fact, wrapped the same number of times as the number of children attending the party. The children all then sit in a circle on the floor. And the music begins to play and the parcel has to be passed. Now, if you are holding the parcel, when the music stops, you are out of the game. And the person next to you gets to take off one wrapper, getting closer to the candy that’s inside. So the only way to win the game is to make sure that you are not holding the parcel. Right down to the last two, when they’re desperately trying to get rid of it until the music stops. A picture came back to me. The only way to win the prize is to make sure you’re not holding the parcel. Now take that picture. Nothing in your hands can ever be secure. Everything in his hands must always be secure. So the way to victory in your life and in mine is to get as quickly as possible everything out of our hands and into his hands, this thing that I call my family, into his hands. Into his hands. This thing that I call my ministry, into his hands. This thing that I call my future, into his hands. This thing that I call my life, into his hands. Paul is able to say, I have committed everything to Christ. Now, can you say that? I mean, what are you holding in your hands that’s not yet committed to him? See, here is the first step to freedom and to victory. I have committed everything to Christ. That’s step one. Remember, three steps to get airborne, that’s step one. Step two, Christ will guard what I’ve committed to him. Now, this is what we learn from Paul’s teaching and from his own experience, as well as from our own Christ, will guard what I’ve committed to him. Listen to what he says, I know whom I have believed and I’m convinced that he is able to guard what I’ve entrusted to him against that day. Christ is able to guard what you have trusted to him. Pastor Colin Smith challenging us there with the question, what am I hanging on to by not entrusting it to Christ? For some of us, that’s a question we probably should ask ourselves over and over again, maybe several times a day. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message called Final Security. It’s from our series, One Thing I Know, all about Christian confidence in an uncertain world. And if you’ve missed any of the series, don’t forget, you can always come online to our website, openthebible.org.uk and there you can catch up or go back and listen again. You can also find our messages as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe for regular updates. You can also find Open the Bible Daily, a series of short two to three minute reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. So Sue, what’s January’s Open the Bible Daily all about? It’s about the book of Deuteronomy, which of course is really a sermon given by Moses before the people finally entered the promised land. And these short daily reflections have plenty to say to us in our day-to-day Christian life. Open the Bible Daily is available on our website, openthebible.org.uk and also available as a podcast. Again, search for Open the Bible UK on your regular podcasting site and subscribe to the podcast to receive a new one every day. Open the Bible is able to stay on this station and on the internet as a result of generous gifts from our listeners, people just like you. And if that’s something you’d like to begin to do, if you’re able to set up a new donation to Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to send you as a thank you gift a book, Psalms by the Day, and it’s written by the Bible scholar Alec Mottier. Colin, who would you say this book is written for? Oh, well, this would be a great resource for anyone who wants to expand the capacity of their own heart. You know, the marvellous thing about the Psalms is that they address every kind of human experience. I mean, you’ve got joy here, you’ve got depression, you’ve got faith, doubt, peace, raging, anger. I mean, the whole range of human experience is in the Psalms. And Psalms by the Day is just a wonderful resource to open up these marvellous prayers in which we’re able to lay before the Lord what we’re feeling in our own hearts and what we’re experiencing in our own lives and seek from him the help that he alone is able to give. Well, we’d love to send you a copy of this book as a free gift if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and for Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again next time. What will happen if you commit everything in your life to Jesus Christ? Find out next time on Open the Bible.