1

2 Tim 4:1-8

4:1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His
appearing and His kingdom: 2Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort,
3
with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4and they
will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5But you be watchful in all things, endure
afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

6
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7I have fought the
8
good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all
who have loved His appearing.

NKJV 2 Tim 4:8

Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give
to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Introduction

We have instances in the Bible where we are told of crowns but the exact nature of
these biblical crowns and what they entail is not specifically stated, and the behaviors
for which they are credited are elsewhere recommended for all believers

We find these crowns mentioned in the following verses:

1. The incorruptible crown: given for exercising self-control and striving to be the best
you can be for the Lord (1 Cor. 9:25 NKJV).

And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but
we for an imperishable crown.

2. The crown of rejoicing: given for winning others to Christ (1 Thess. 2:19 NKJV).

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His
coming? NKJV

3. The crown of righteousness: given for loving his appearing (2 Tim. 4:8 NKJV).

Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on
that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

4. The crown of life: given for enduring under trial (James 1:12). Also Rev 2:10 to the
brethren at Smyrna

James 1:12

Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which
the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

5. The crown of glory: given for eagerly, faithfully, shepherding the flock (1 Pet. 5:4).

and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. NKJV
 2

Having looked at the verses that point to crowns, let us now consider our text 2
Timothy 4:8

“Finally, (Loipon (Greek): henceforth, now, furthermore, moreover, +it

remains, then), there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness…”

We shall look at three things hopefully to help us follow the discussion.

1. For whom is this crown of righteousness laid up for?

2. What is required for us to attain to this level? What are the rules?

3. Why should we remain fighting or remain in this race and also "be
given"?

1. For whom is this crown of righteousness laid up for? It is not for the following
people:

(a) Those who seek respect. Some people want to gain respect from the
neighbours because they go to church. They will have it in full. 2 Tim 3:4

4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

(b) Those who desire to be considered pre-eminently saints. 2 Tim 3:5

“Having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
These ask to join church membership and they hide their hypocrisy. I am
afraid we have a considerable number of persons of this sort in our
churches who only come for the mere sake of keeping up their religious
pretensions and obtaining a religious status in the midst of the church of
God.

(c) Some are in need of food, they seek for charity in the church. Others are
interested in business. They are in business at church. 2 Tim 3:2 “…
lovers of themselves, lovers of money…”

(d) Those who come to church to quiet their conscience. 2 Tim 4:4 “And
they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside
to fables”(Have itching ears)

Positively, On the other hand, this is for people like the apostle Paul. Those who loved
the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who seek Heaven, eternal life,
justification by faith, the pardon of sin, acceptance in the beloved and glory
everlasting. It is those who seek Salvation. These ones have sought to have a
repentance that needs not to be repented of. A faith which looks to Christ alone.

2. What is required for us to attain to this level? What are the rules?

(a) You need to be enrolled for the race. Those who make no profession of
being Christians are out rightly not enrolled for the race. You cannot
 3

expect to win heaven unless your name is entered for the race. This talks
of those people who say me I am definitely not a Christian.

(b) You need to have started a good start. Some people have heard that
before a man can be saved, it is necessary that, by the teaching of the
Holy Spirit, he should feel the weight of sin, that he should make a
confession of it, that he should renounce all hope in his own works, and
should look to Jesus Christ alone. But they do not take heed. “Let us
remember, however, that there never was a true new birth
without much spiritual suffering, that there never was a man
who had a changed heart without his first having a miserable
heart.”

(c) We need to cast everything away except that one thing needful, and say,
"This is my business, to serve God on earth, knowing that I shall enjoy
him in heaven." For when we leave our business to God, we leave it in
better hands than if we took care of it ourselves. However, others find it
their business to care about everything else apart from serving the Lord.
They are full of worries about what to eat, to wear and how the economy
will be tomorrow.

(d) We ought to mind our master’s business and have our minds fixed on him
and watch our walk and doctrine closely. Some people stop on their way
to kick their fellows. Such things sometimes occur in a race. The horse,
instead of speeding onwards to the mark, is of an angry disposition, and
sets about kicking those that are running beside it—there is not much
probability of it coming in first. "Now they that run in a race run all, but
one receives the prize." There is one however who never gets it, and that
is the man who always attends to his fellow-creatures instead of himself.
Their own faults become exceedingly small while those of others become
magnificently great. Now this is a fault not only among professing
religious men, but among those who are Christians as well. We are all so
prone to find fault with other people instead of attending to our own
home affairs.

We will not be judged for other men's sins, we will not be saved by their
faith, we will not be condemned for their unbelief. Every man must stand
in his own proper flesh and blood at the bar of God, to account for the
works done in his own body, whether they have been good or evil. It will
be of little avail for you to say at the Day of Judgment, "O Lord, I was
looking at my neighbors; O Lord, I was finding fault with the people in my
community; I was correcting their follies." But thus saith the Lord: "Did I
 4

ever commission you to be a judge or a divider over them? Why, if you

had so much time to spare, and so much critical judgment, did you not
exercise it upon yourself? Why did you not examine yourself, so that you
might have been found ready and acceptable in the day of God?" These
persons are not very likely to win the race, because they turn to kicking
others.

(e) "He that endures to the end, the same shall be saved." We should
persevere to the end. We get young people, who come forward and make
a profession of religion, and we talk with them, and we think it is all well
with them, and for a little while they do run well; there is nothing wanting
in them; we could hold them up as examples for the imitation of others.
Wait a couple of years they drop off just by little and little. Remember, it
is not starting that wins the race; it is running all the way.
We have seen the rules of the race, let us run so that we may obtain," we must
first of all take care to start well; we must keep to the course; we must keep strait
on; we must not stop on the road, or turn aside from it, but, urged on by Divine
grace, we must ever fly onwards, "like a bullet, shot from a gun." And never rest
until the march is ended, and we are made pillars in the house of our God, to go
out no more for ever.

This brings me to the third and final question

3. Why should we remain fighting or remain in this race?

(a) “We are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses." Now,

Christian brethren, how many witnesses are looking down upon us?

i. From heaven the angels look down upon us, and they seem to cry
to-day to us with sweet, voice, "You shall reap if you faint not; you
shall be rewarded if you continue steadfast in the work and faith of
Christ."

ii. And the saints look down upon us—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
martyrs and confessors,

iii. The whole world looks upon a Christian: he is the observed of all
observers. In a Christian every fault is seen.
A story is told of a young man, a member of a Christian
church, who went to a public-house hall of the lowest
character; and he was no sooner mounting up the stairs,
than one of them said, "Ah! here comes the Methodist; we
will give it to him." As soon as they had him in the room,
they first of all led him up and down to let everybody see
the Methodist who had come among them, and then they
 5

kicked him down stairs. The narrator of the story says, I

sent them my Respectful compliments for doing so, for it
served him right; and I took care that he was kicked down
stairs in another sense afterwards, and kicked out of the
church. The world would not have him and the church
would not have him.

iv. There are spirits that move in the air, who are under the prince of
the power of the air, who watch every day for our halting. And the
devil himself ever accusing us before God.

v. What about the crown of righteousness that is before us.

Christian, run onward, for remember who it is that stands at the
winning post. We are to run onward, always looking unto Jesus,
then Jesus must be at the end. We are always to be looking
forward, and never backward; therefore Jesus must be there. Are
we loitering? See him with his open wounds. Are we about to leave
the course? See him with his bleeding hands; will not that
constrain us to devote ourself to him? Will not that impel us to
speed our course, and never loiter until we have obtained the
crown? Our dying Master cries to us to-day, and he says. "By my
agony and bloody sweat; by my cross and passion, onward! By my
life, which I gave for you; by the death which I endured for your
sake, onward!" And see! He holds out his hand, laden with a crown
sparkling with many a star, and he says, "By this crown, onward!" I
beseech you, onward, my beloved; press forward, for "I know that
there is laid up for me a crown of life which fades not away, and
not for me only, but for all them that love his appearing."

What are we going to present before our master? Rev 4:10

Rev 4:10-11

10 the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives
forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:

11 "You are worthy, O Lord,

To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created."

CONCLUSION
We need to know that there are no crowns in heaven reserved for those who did not carry their cross.
Let us plan to labour for the master who alone will reward. We must love him.
Let us not faint. For we will only win when persevere up to the end.
Let us one of these days say with the apostle Paul
 6

“Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will
give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”