2 Timothy (Part 1)

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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All right. What we're doing today is thinking about gospel ministry.

What's required in those who are to be leaders? I've been thinking a lot about the book of 2

Timothy. So if you have your Bibles, you can grab them, and we are going to talk about the last book

Paul wrote. Now here is his deathbed letter, as it were. He might have said some other things between this time and when he, according to tradition, got his head chopped off on the

Ostian Way outside of Rome. He probably said some other things, but this is the last letter that Paul wrote that the

Spirit of God worked in such a way, and we might use words like inspiration, which is a good word.

I believe in that. That God moved, to use the language of 2 Peter 1, it's like he bore these men along.

And so this is the last inspired book written by Paul. You can count quite a few books written by Paul. Of course, he's written more books in the

New Testament than anyone else, and he is writing to his understudy. And I here at the church, probably, oh, five years in, maybe a little bit earlier, realized that there's kind of a paradigm shift that needs to be done by most ministers.

And so here's what typically happens. People, all of us, me included, myself included,

I included, moi, me, we have problems.

And if the pastor's not careful, the elders aren't careful, they spend all their time with people who have the problems.

Now, inevitably, since we all have problems, pastors need to spend time with people. They need to spend time with people who have problems.

I understand that. But what I want to add, and where the paradigm shift happened, in my mind, in large part to, credited to the ministry of Tommy Nelson, as he would train men, he has this young guns program,

I realized that if you only spend time with people who, to use the language of 1 Thessalonians 5, who are weak, of course, we need to help them.

But what do we do when it comes to 2 Timothy 2, verse 2, and training up other men and passing the baton for gospel ministry, discipling men for ministry?

And if you do that, then some of those men can help the weak ones. So there's certainly times that every pastor has to spend time with people who are struggling.

I understand that. I'd like it if, when I'm struggling, people would spend time with me, right? I understand.

But he has to figure out a way to train men. Now, that training isn't really explicitly, the way to train is not explicitly laid out in the

New Testament. You know, meet on Tuesdays, 6 a .m., make them memorize Bible verses, chase them if they're late, make them buy breakfast, although that's a good idea.

Have them read a John Owen book, a book report, teach them how to go to the hospital, and have them go visit somebody.

It doesn't really tell us. It just tells us the importance of training men for gospel ministry, either explicitly, 2

Timothy 2, or as you watch Paul, Paul with Timothy. And this is part of the final discipleship.

These are the last four chapters, Timothy. I have a few things I want to remind you of. I've already taught you theology.

There's theology throughout 2 Timothy, of course. But he's not trying to tell Timothy, by the way, this is what you're supposed to believe about the

Godhead. This is what you're supposed to believe about the Trinity. Don't forget Jesus is God. I mean, that's just all laced throughout the book.

But he's giving Timothy a charge. Now if pastors, back on the earlier point here, if pastors want to do counseling and they meet with a person for 12 weeks, an hour at a time, plus thinking about what they want.

What are you thinking about? Thinking about, if you haven't watched that Berlitz commercial, what are you thinking about with the coast guard, the

German coast guard? You are going to, I've watched that thing a hundred times at least. This is a

German coast guard. What are you thinking about?

Now to get the joke, you're going to have to turn it on, but it is funny. Twelve times you'll meet at an hour at a time, that's 12 hours.

Plus, you know, there's things that you're thinking about beforehand and working through afterwards and what should you talk about the next time.

So let's just add another five hours. Just, it's my show. I get to do it. So that's 17 hours. And if you do that with five people a quarter, let's say, the amount of time that a pastor has is limited.

So he has to make decisions. Okay. I need to help the weak. It's obvious. I need to come alongside the faint -hearted.

I need to admonish the unruly, again, using language of 1 Thessalonians 5, but I have to disciple.

It's part of it. And Paul in his last will and testament tells Timothy, you've got to disciple young men.

And that's one of the things that we've done here at the church, which now just happens. And remember discipleship is not, you just sit in on another

Bible study and you read a book and then you kind of talk about it. Discipleship must include the possibility of success and the possibility of failure.

In other words, this is the verse. This is how we memorize it. This is what it means. Here's some tips on memory.

We'll meet next week. Give me your verse. Did you memorize it? And then they fail and they say,

I can't memorize numbers and all that stuff. Let's go do such and such.

There's a possibility to succeed and to fail. So when they succeed, you encourage them. And when they fail, you fire them.

Now, you still show grace, but you can learn a lot when people don't do what they're supposed to do.

And of course, there are, you know, things that come up in health issues, I understand that. So training men in discipleship.

And of course, for you ladies listening, since we are equal employment opportunity folks here.

But seriously, second chapter of Titus, we'll talk about ladies mentoring, discipling, training other ladies.

So that goes true for both. If you're an older lady and you're meeting with a younger lady, and you never give them assignments where they can succeed or fail, then you need to rearrange the way you're doing discipleship.

There are far too many Bible studies and book reading clubs around the church where you can simply audit it. You just show up and you don't get it done.

Fine. Just keep coming. We're glad to have the numbers. Discipleship will, in fact, revolutionize the church, but it'll also cause trouble.

Because when you tell people, listen, you're not allowed to come to this discipleship group anymore, they get mad.

I've had people get mad at me. I've had people leave the church because I've said, you know what? This is the third week in a row that you haven't done your work.

It's not like your mom's in the hospital and you're attending to her. It's just life happens and you didn't get the work done.

All these other nine guys did. And I told you, did I not, that at the very beginning of class, listen, two strikes, you're out.

Or three strikes, you're out. Whatever we set up ahead of time. Do you all agree? Yes. You understand that if you don't get this done and you don't have a legitimate excuse, like when guys here are late for our discipleship meetings,

I say to them, the old me would say, you know, you owe me or whatever. Put five bucks in the donut kitty, the

Krispy Kreme hard -boiled egg kitty. Now I say, you know, was there a lady alongside of the road that had gotten a car wreck and you were helping her?

Somebody had a flat tire. And then one time a guy said, yes, it's true. I had to stop and help somebody. I said, well, of course you aren't docked because you see an ox in the ditch on the

Sabbath and you help, you're okay. Well back to point in Second Timothy, we have trained men, not just me, but the other elders.

And it's a culture of discipleship. Some people get discipled by others here at the church. We don't know anything about it as leaders.

We're happy it's all happening. Find somebody that knows more about the Lord than you do and learn from them. And then it works the other way.

Find somebody that knows less and teach them. That's the wonderful thing about Christianity. And we just keep on going.

Well, we have some young men at the church and one particular man that you've heard on the radio, Eric Johanson.

He is now the pastor of Grace Church Hartford, Hartford. It's about an hour and a half away, although it's snowing.

I preach there tomorrow for the installation service, early January in real time. And it's supposed to snow six inches, eight inches today.

So what time in the morning would I have to leave? Maybe it's better if I just preach seven minutes down the street, Bethlehem Bible Church, but I'm committed.

You can either succeed or you can fail. One of the things

I do with the men is I'm looking outside now, the window here in No Compromise Studios.

There's a little Catholic cemetery across the street. So we don't really have a sidewalk or anything.

It's just one of those kind of country roads, central mass roads. It seems like a country road.

I don't know what they call it. It's not rural route. I mean, it's Route 110. I know that, but technically, I don't know what kind of road it is.

It's paved. And I'm looking at the Catholic cemetery right now across the street. Well, I'll take the men who are in my preaching discipleship classes over there and have them preach to the gravestones.

And I will tell them, listen, you're preaching to the gravestones for a couple reasons.

Well, one, it's interesting. You'll remember it. Two, the neighbors think we're weird.

I like to reinforce that fact as often as I can. Three, you will realize this is a little, this is like a little analogy.

This is a little picture and the picture is unless God attends to his word, nothing's going to happen.

And that's for unbelievers that hear the word, right? They need to be made alive through the word. God's a sovereign pleasure.

And believers, too, need to have the spirit of God apply, energize, illuminate, et al.,

the word of God, or it doesn't do anything, right? You have two people. They're both unbelievers.

They hear the gospel preached. The good news is that Jesus Christ saves sinners, death, burial, and resurrection.

One gets saved and one doesn't. What's the difference? They both heard the same message. Well, the spirit of God, at his good pleasure, sovereignly regenerates through preaching the one and not the other.

But our responsibility is to preach to one and all, and we just have to rely on the spirit of God for any fruit.

That is fruit that results on the salvation, our fruit that results unto, when do you ever say unto in the world?

Unto sanctification. Years ago, there was a man named Elisha Yale, and he was talking to a minister who was going to be ordained.

And I'm thinking about ordination because I'm doing the installation service tomorrow of this young man that we discipled, not just me but many others.

And he's now a pastor. I mean, just how cool is that, where you have somebody walk into the church, basically, he was asking the question, why are there so many

John MacArthur study Bibles around here? Who's John MacArthur? You know, it's just like the

MacArthur cult. And I said to him, by the way, see all those books there on the book table, in the bookstore?

There are books there by Sinclair Ferguson and R .C. Sproul and Lorraine Bettner and John Calvin, John Owen, right?

All kinds of books. And there's some by MacArthur, but not the most. So they're just a new study

Bible that's out and everybody's got it. So he was happy. Now he's a pastor. I mean, what kind of thrill in the heart of a church and her elder board and her pastors?

There'd be a lot of thrill. That's a thrill of the lifetime, right, where somebody goes off and preaches.

But it is serious. And so that gets us back to 2 Timothy, just how serious it is. So Elisha Yale said, my dear brother, it was but a few days ago that I was by the grave of a beloved

Christian minister who had just finished his work and laid down his commission at the feet of Jesus.

In view of that grave, I would now address you in the name of Christ at your entrance upon the duties of the sacred office.

Of all the undertakings of men, none are more important than the work to which you are this day set apart and consecrated.

It is an appointment not of men but of God. The investiture of the office is my human hands but the office itself is of divine authority.

And you can just imagine the gravity of that in light of the grave. By the way, that's why

I have a skull on my desk because I know I'm dying one day and the people to whom I preach, they will die one day.

You could use a grave as a good illustration of the solemnity and the high task of this ministry or you could just look at 2

Timothy. That's my point. You could go to 2 Timothy and you could say to yourself, here's what happens.

This is the charge. This is the graveyard, as it were, to make sure you remember before you embark on gospel ministry.

Now the great part about 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, and to some degree the so -called fourth pastoral epistle, 2

Corinthians, the good part about reading those things, even though you might not be a pastor or you might not be an elder, you see what

God requires. You see the gravity of the charge to the elders. You know what the elders are expected to do.

You know what the pastor must do. You know how to pray for them. This could be prayer requests for the pastor, couldn't it, as you see what

Paul tells Timothy to do and then every other pastor who dares walk in the steps of Timothy.

People have a distorted view of what a pastor should do, must do, does do, and might do.

I said that to such a degree, there's some chapsticks in here. My desk here in the studio is just a complete disaster.

The studio's a disaster. My study's a disaster. I just ordered a new bookshelf to try to get some of these books.

I don't like it when my bookshelf has books sideways, like sitting on the top of the way they're supposed to.

They're supposed to be up and down. You can see the spine. You can see what book it is. Then they're all just jammed in.

It's awful. If you saw my desk here today, the studio desk, it's just jammed. That's the word jammed.

It's just not very good. What about people who think, well, my pastor should be my best friend.

My pastor should be my buddy. When you read 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, you realize, yes, the gravity of the call, but your expectations are now managed via Scripture.

This is what the pastor must do. Of course, any pastor who's a godly pastor, of course, will be kind to the sheep, but if he has to pick, am

I nice to the sheep and kind to them and do what they think a pastor should do, or must I do what

God says? That's where the graveyard comes in. That's where 2 Timothy comes in. I have to do what

I have to do because this is what the Bible says. When I talked to Eric, I could say to him, in light of everything

I've done for you, this is why I want you to be faithful. You know what? There's a large degree of truth to that.

That is true. But now you use that as the how much more argument. You amplify it all the more to say, listen, it's not just you owe me.

It's not just what you do reflects upon my ministry. Those pale in comparison to the charges found in the

Bible from God to you, and you lay the weight of God's holy word on the person's mind, soul, conscience, and will through preaching 2

Timothy. The congregation is reminded of the high and holy calling of the gospel minister and the elders.

Could there be a more important message for the church in all of the

Bible than 2 Timothy? See how we like rhetorical flair here, no compromise radio.

Before Paul gives the charges in 2 Timothy, he gives his intro. Paul, 2

Timothy 1 .1, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus.

To Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our

Lord. Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus. Our Lord. Timothy, I'm going to write you a letter.

I want to encourage you to stay steadfast, to stand, hold the line.

This is my last will and testament. You're one of my best friends. You're my protege.

I've followed the Lord now for 30 years, Christ Jesus, and I'm going to die soon.

This is my legacy to you, Timothy. And, wonderfully, since it's an inspired book, this is my legacy to the church for thousands of years.

Quite different when you read this, even from the first two verses. Isn't it different from when, you know, you watch people on death row and they have their final words, and a true story, one person said before he was executed, he had two words he wanted to say.

What are those two words? Go Raiders. Quite different here in 2

Timothy. A lot of emotion, a lot of solemnity, a lot of hold the line kind of language, military language, battle language.

Eusebius, the historian, said, whilst then a prisoner, Paul wrote the second epistle to Timothy in which he both mentions his first offense and his impending death.

And when you write in light of that, your impending death, you kind of cut out all the fluff, don't you?

You cut out all the, you know, Tom Brady talk. That stuff's not in there. Paul's charge is

Trinitarian, God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, and that is really

Paul's whole ministry, is a Trinitarian ministry, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Sinclair Ferguson said, our people need to know that through the Spirit their fellowship is with the

Father and with His Son, Christ Jesus. Would they know that from my preaching?

Would they know that from my preaching? You'd know it if you listened to Paul. You would know that God is triune if you listen to Paul.

And that is the undergirding of everything here. The triune

God is going to have to be the one that strengthens Timothy and anyone else to do all these things.

Well, Mike Ebendroth here. This is No Compromise Radio, nocompromiseradio .com.

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