Principles for the Steadfast and Suffering Soldier pt. 1: Don't Let Distraction Derail You!
2 Timothy 2:3-4
2 Timothy 2:3-4
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Your phone buzzes. As you pick it up you’re instantly bombarded with an onslaught of notifications. The football game at 1pm this Sunday. The hockey season beginning soon. The latest news headline. Text messages from old friends. Emails waiting to be tackled. The latest movie release. The newest season of your favorite show. Notifications upon notifications, updates upon updates, distractions upon distractions.
Tony Reinke, in his book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, says that most of us “check our smartphones about 81,500 times each year, or once every 4.3 waking minutes of our waking lives.” We live digitally distracted lives. And while our phones and technology are not the sole sources of our often all too common distractedness, they highlight and epitomize our culture’s addiction to instant gratification and our susceptibility to constant distraction. So how do we deal with distraction? How do we stay focused in a world that is on a 24/7 mission to seduce us to its passions and pleasures?
Because if we want to be Christians who faithfully endure in suffering for the sake of the gospel and daily pick up our cross with courage and confidence, our verses today teach us that we must not let distraction derail us. Let’s see what God’s Word has to say!
Our verses for today read, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” (2 Timothy 2:3-4). Up to this point in 2 Timothy, Paul has already established that suffering is an inevitable inclusion in the package of faithfulness to the Lord. (v8, 12). And yet, we see that here again he is reminding and calling Timothy (and us!) to share and participate in suffering for the sake of the gospel. In this call to suffering however, Paul uses three analogies, and gives three principles to help Timothy and us better understand what it means to be a steadfast and suffering soldier in God’s army. Principle number one is this: Don’t be derailed by distraction, but have the missional focus of a soldier.
Verse 4 says, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Now, I am no military expert or war-strategy genius, but I am knowledgeable enough to know this: A distracted soldier is a dead soldier. When you’re on the battlefield, focus on the mission at hand is essential. On the battlefield, soldiers have no room for dilly-dallying and “hanging around”, they simply must accomplish the assigned mission and do it while staying alive. There is a special kind of intensity, intentionality, and missional focus that any good soldier is required to have.
“A distracted soldier is a dead soldier.”
So when Paul uses the analogy of a soldier to help Timothy understand what it means to share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, he’s telling us that just as a soldier is characterized with an intense and unwavering missional-focus, so we too, as soldiers in the Lord’s army ought to be characterized with an intense and unwavering missional-focus.
Paul is not telling us here that we can’t ever be lighthearted or ever enjoy God’s good gifts. He isn’t intending to create a dichotomy between “secular and sacred”, and isn’t calling us to completely ostracize ourselves from this world. However, what he is doing is warning us from getting entangled in preoccupations that prevent us from maximizing our time, treasure, and talents for the glory of God and the good of others. Paul is bidding us remember that good things had too much or in the wrong ways become bad things. He is reminding us that God-given delights enjoyed and experienced disproportionately become God-displeasing and mission-derailing distractions. Just like how a train that gets derailed runs off the tracks into ruin and catastrophe, when our lives become characterized by distraction we are dangerously treading the path of spiritual catastrophe, and become ineffective in the furthering of God’s great commission (Matthew 28:18-20). If we want to faithfully endure as effective and obedient Christians, we must not let ourselves become derailed by distraction!
“God-given delights enjoyed and experienced disproportionately become God-displeasing and mission-derailing distractions.”
In verse 4 Paul reminds us of one more important truth. He reminds us not only of the mindset we ought to have in the mission, but also of the master we aim to please in the mission. Because as we seek to embody the missional-focus of a soldier, we can’t forget who it is that we daily fight for: our general and commander in chief Jesus Christ! As we daily battle with our spiritual weapons of warfare, we must always wage war intending and longing to hear the words of Matthew 25:23a, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Our main motivation as soldiers of Christ Jesus is not to advance in the military chain of command, but to make our Lord and Savior known in all the ends of the earth.
“Our main motivation as soldiers of Christ Jesus is not to advance in the military chain of command, but to make our Lord and Savior known in all the ends of the earth.”
So in what ways are we currently being derailed by distraction? What habit, activity, or practice, is hindering your gospel-effectiveness? To diagnose the degree of your distractedness, Tony Reinke helpfully says, “True distractions include anything (even a good thing) that veils our spiritual eyes from the shortness of time and from the urgency of the season of heightened expectation as we await the summing up of all history.” What is causing you to forget the grand redemptive story that we get to play a part in? What is veiling your spiritual eyes, and weakening your eternal excitement and anticipation? What distraction is derailing your God-given mission as a soldier of Christ Jesus?
I’ve heard it said that if the devil can’t destroy you eternally for heaven, then he will distract you constantly while you are on this earth. That helpful quote reminds me and all of us that we must beware of the small and subtle ways in which our Adversary the devil seeks to distract and worse destroy our souls. (1 Peter 5:8). Because left unattended to and unaddressed, the devil’s quiet and small distractions can lead to a loud and major destruction! We must beware of the devil’s distractions!
I also have to often remind myself that as a Christian I am not called to have a minimalistic mindset. My goal is not to do the least I can do to still be able to comfortably and confidently describe myself as a faithful Christian. My goal is to use every second, minute, hour, and day for the glory of God and good of others. My goal is to be the servant who is out investing and multiplying the talents he has been given (Matt 25:16-17) and the Christian fanning into flame the spiritual gifts I have been entrusted with. (2 Timothy 1:6). As a soldier of Christ Jesus I need to remind myself that my general gave up His very life so that I may be daily purified for his possession and tirelessly zealous for good works done in his service. (Titus 2:14). As a soldier of Christ Jesus, I am not to be derailed by distraction, but am to be devoted, disciplined, and diligent in service to my Savior and King. (2 Tim 2:4). Oh how easy it is to be allured by the pleasures of this world!
1 Peter 1:13-16, and 2:11 says, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Today, let us pray that God will help us to be sober-minded and missionally-focused. Let’s pray that as we wage war against the passions of our souls and the lies of Satan and this world, we will be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and excited for the crown of righteousness that awaits all who endure in suffering for the sake of the gospel. May God make all of us more effective soldiers in his global army! And may we be steadfast and suffering soldiers who do not let distraction derail us!