Ready to Be Offered: Sure of Your Salvation, Service, and Savior

During the church’s 58th anniversary and mission emphasis services, guest speaker Pastor Greg Boyle preached from 2 Timothy 4:6-8, the last words the Apostle Paul wrote before his execution. From a Roman prison, awaiting death, Paul could say, “I am now ready to be offered.” Sharing how doctors had once given him up to hospice—“I am somebody who failed hospice”—Pastor Boyle pressed the question home: are we ready to meet the Lord? Being ready, he explained, is far bigger than any one thing; it means being prepared to stand before Christ and give account for our lives.

He gave three reasons Paul was ready. First, Paul was sure of his salvation. Quoting “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12), Boyle stressed that Paul did not say “what” he believed—salvation is not trusting facts about Christ, attending church, or a general belief in God, but trusting the Person of Jesus Christ, who alone is the way to the Father.

Second, Paul was sure of his service: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.” The Christian life, Boyle testified from his own story, can be a fight—he lost friends and faced ridicule from family when he was saved, and surrendered his dream of flying to answer God’s call to preach. God has a course for each believer, and one day we will answer for how we ran it.

Third, Paul was sure of his Savior—“the Lord, the righteous judge.” Others judge unfairly and cannot see the heart, but God does, and He is “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” The sacrifices made for Christ will one day prove worth it. Pastor Boyle closed by urging every listener to be sure of their salvation, to live for God, and to trust the righteous Judge—so that they, too, might one day say with Paul, “I am ready.”