Thinking Beyond Yourself

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Jon McGinnis; 2 Timothy 2:1-7 Thinking Beyond Yourself

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Well, my name is
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John McGinnis, and I'll tell you what, it's exciting to be back. I spoke probably three years ago, three and a half years ago, to you guys.
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I think you were, well, you might have been in the school at that time. I remember sitting in my office over at Berean years ago when
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Don started at Berean, and then I remember sitting in there talking with him about the idea of a church plant, and then
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I remember the planning stages of it, and to come back every two, three, four years to see the stages that God has brought you guys through, it's exciting to see that.
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I want you to think just kind of as a, I'll talk a little bit about myself, my family, in a few minutes here, but think about who has influenced your life.
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Think about who's impacted your life. For me, the easiest answer is my father -in -law.
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I met my wife when she was 15, and I was 16, which is way too young to do any of that, but my wife was 15,
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I was 16. I remember the first time I met my father -in -law, he was a pastor at the time, getting ready to preach, and we walked in the office, and Johnny, my wife, says, hey, hey dad, this is
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John McGinnis, and dad goes, hi, and it was that awkward silence for what felt like, you know, 10 minutes, and that kind of started our relationship there, and I remember throughout the years with my father -in -law, the things that I learned.
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I remember sitting down at the dinner table with him for the first time, again, I was 16 years old, and they started quoting scripture.
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It's, you know, pretty cool. They sat down, they started doing psalm, whatever, and they did the entire chapter, and it was like 40 verses, and the whole family, and I just, sitting there going, wow, that, it's impressive, kind of awkward, because I had no idea.
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I mean, I knew the passage, but I didn't know memorized scripture to that length, but I was challenged in that.
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We, we, my wife and I in a typical dating relationship, we dated, we broke up, we dated, we broke up, we dated, and then we got engaged and got married.
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I remember in that process of, of pursuing marriage, we were young, she was 20, I was 21, and sitting down with, with her dad and, and walking through, here's, here's how it's going to work, which as we all know, it never works out that way.
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Here's our budget, and here's how I'm going to provide for his daughter, and, and we talked through a lot of, of marriage, and that type of stuff.
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We never really had formal premarital counseling, but a lot of conversation with her mom and dad about life, and marriage, and that type of stuff.
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Then we went from there to our, our, uh, we were married, and with our first year, uh,
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I went into Christian education, and that's my, my bachelor's degree is in, is in Christian education, which is kind of how you do education within a church setting, and, um, that was because my father -in -law, that was his degree, was
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Christian education, and the influence I, I, and I really never realized that the influence I had, even in the major that I chose, was through the influence of my father -in -law in my life.
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Um, we got married. We, we, uh, went to our first ministry in Columbus, Ohio, so I am a
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Buckeye. It is what it is. Um, so I, I, we go into first ministry of Columbus, Ohio, and that was a hard ministry, and we were intercity, intercity
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Columbus, and it was just, uh, some rough stuff, and I remember constantly going back to him and asking him for advice and question.
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I had questions about stuff, and we dealt with a lot of issues at that church, and then God brought us up here to Michigan to Berean, and I remember talking again specifically with my father -in -law through the transition.
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Do we do this? Do we not do this? Is God calling us to move up here? Is he not? And then we move up here, and I was a six, almost seven years, six and a half years at Berean, um, and I remember many, many times going back to my father -in -law and just the influence in my life.
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In 1995, we weren't, my wife and I weren't married yet. Um, in 1995, my father -in -law took his family to Russia for a year, actually a year and a half, to live and to, to teach pastors.
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So my wife lived in Russia for a year, and, um, it was with a group called
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Tri -M, and I'd never really, you know, it was, it was something that just happened. Fast forward now, um, a year ago last
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April, my family, we joined that Tri -M team now, and actually we have opened up Latin America with it.
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So even now, within the last two years, the influence of my father, my father -in -law in my life has, has, uh, directly impacted our life and our ministry.
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And as I think through, and we'll talk a little bit more in, in just a few minutes here, on, on how people influence you and impact you, it's, it's incredible to think through the many ways that people can influence other people around them.
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2 Timothy 2 .2, actually 2 Timothy 2 .1 -7 is gonna be our, our passage.
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We're gonna focus mostly on 2 .2, but we're gonna look at the whole passage, um, this morning. I'm just gonna read it and then pass it off.
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But 2 Timothy 2, verse 1. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
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It is the hard -working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what
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I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
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Today, I want to talk a little bit about, or ask you guys to be thinking beyond yourself.
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How can you and I think beyond ourselves in life and in ministry? All right, so, uh, you can either thank me or blame me for doing
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Dave and Rachel's premarital counseling before they got married. We go,
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I would say, I'd say way back, but not way, way back, but far enough that I appreciate Dave being up here and leading and just what all that means.
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Um, all right, so the whole, uh, 10 -minute introduction at the beginning, it's a good idea, but I feel like I need to introduce myself and I have to, like, wait halfway through the day to do it.
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My name is John McGinnis, as has been said. I served at Berean Baptist Church for about six and a half years, um, and that's where I met
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Don and, and maybe a quarter of you guys here. And, uh, my wife and I are serving in the country of Costa Rica.
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You guys are smart enough to know that Costa Rica is not an island. Most people ask, you know, how's the island of,
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I'm like, it's not an island. We're south of Nicaragua, north of Panama. Uh, we've been there for the last, uh, six, going on seven years now.
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Uh, we went down with Tactica Ministries. Many of you are familiar with Tactica. About two and a half years into it, we transitioned to focus from police officers to focus mostly with pastors, training and equipping, uh, pastors and leaders within the, within the local church.
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And, uh, that's pretty much what we do. Uh, we partner with a ministry called TRI -M, and TRI -M stands for Mobile Modular Ministry.
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Uh, we teach Bible college level, seminary level classes to pastors. Uh, instead of having them come to us in the capital city, uh, we go to them.
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We're mobile. So I, I have two training centers up in, um, one in Santa Rosa del Poco Sol, which is about three hours north of the capital city of San Jose.
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Um, and we're on our second year of classes there. And then to the left of that, there's a volcano and a lake, and then there's the small town of Tronadora.
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Uh, we've done our, started our first year of teaching modular classes there. Long story short, because this is not a presentation for our ministry, long story short, we teach, uh, 240 hours worth of, of Bible college training.
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It's basically freshman college level is where we teach at. Um, our whole ministry—this does tie into what we're talking about—our whole ministry is divided into two areas, pretty much.
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Discipleship and training. Okay, um, we focus on training in the classes that I teach.
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Uh, we do two modules now. I'm opening up a third module and looking to open up another country, actually, um, in the year to come.
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We, I also teach with a group of, uh, English -American, uh, English -speaking
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American students down in Costa Rica. They're, it's with, through the GAP program, through SCORE International.
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You might be familiar with that, you might not. SCORE does a lot of sports ministries and stuff. So I teach, uh, uh, hermeneutics, how we study the
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Bible, and I teach the book of Romans to those guys as well. About 28 of those. Um, my wife and I focus, the, the remainder of our life in ministry in Costa Rica is discipleship.
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Uh, my wife is a small group leader for that organization called SCORE, um, as well as mentors two of their, or three of their interns every year, um, as well as she mentors two or three pastors' wives.
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Um, I meet with about six or eight guys weekly in the area of discipleship. So my, our heart and passion in ministry is teaching and is discipleship.
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And, um, that's, that's kind of what's led me to where we're at today. Whenever I, I get asked to speak, or to fill in, or do whatever, um,
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I usually end up somewhere around 2 Timothy, um, because that is the heartbeat of our ministry, is 2
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Timothy 2 .2. Um, I want you to think, um, go ahead and hit it one more time.
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I want you to think about, um, I guess one more time, sorry, who has impacted your life.
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All right, I, I mentioned that in the very beginning. I talked about my father -in -law. Now the reality of it is, um, a lot of people influence our lives, right?
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It's usually not just one person. I know for, for me, my father -in -law has had the biggest influence in my life, but I look back and I think, well, okay, um,
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Pastor Wright is a guy's name, Pastor in Columbus. That man taught me how to be a pastor, all right?
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I was, uh, 21, 22 years old, uh, starting in ministry as a youth pastor, and I remember walking into the very first hospital call, and it's like, what do you do at a hospital call?
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You know, as I had never been to one before in my entire life, do you just walk in and you say, hey, do you, like, half hour, 10 minutes, five minutes, eight minutes, an hour?
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Do you talk to the doctors? I don't know what to do, and I remember Pastor Wright walking me through and said, hey, you know, in and out.
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People just, they want to know that you care about them. They want you to pray with them, but you don't have to linger because you're just kind of in the way.
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So I learned a little bit about that, and I, I remember, uh, basics of discipleship. I remember, uh,
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I learned to play the guitar in that first ministry, um, and then Pastor Wright immediately had me up playing in front of the church, which is quite, quite comical at that, at that stage in my life, um, but he wanted to see me get involved in ministry, and I look back at, at my life in ministry, and I see that his handprint or thumbprint, fingerprint all over those aspects of my, my life in ministry.
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Another friend of mine and pastor as well, he was my pastor growing up, uh, his name is Eric Mounts, and I remember
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Eric, he's the guy I go to when I have theological questions that I don't know the answer for. You know,
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I've done seminary, and so I'm like, yeah, but I always have a couple questions where I'm like, I just, I'm not getting it, and even at 42 years old now,
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I, I get these questions, and I'm like, I just, I'm not, I call him. So to this day, he and I are in contact.
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He's my, I would say, more of a spiritual mentor, uh, theological mentor in my life. The people influence you in, in so many different areas, but what, what do these guys have along, in common, in common?
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All of these people put time and energy into my life. All of them sacrificed time to spend with me, all right?
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That's, that's the key. I'm going to kind of jump from to the beginning, or to the end at the beginning. That's the key to, to discipleship, time together, time building in, being that person that someone can call and can, can talk to.
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That's, that's, that's the key right there. Now, you guys see my son here. JD, stand up real quick.
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So, so it was mentioned about kind of a, he's a little mini me, and he is. You can sit down. Um, he is, uh, and that's okay.
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Uh, you know, JD came up with me on this trip, and, and why, why did, why did he come?
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My, why is my family not here? My, uh, family's not here because they're at, my two oldest daughters are going to a, a transition seminar.
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Uh, TCK stands for third culture kid, someone who's grown up overseas. My two oldest, when we moved to Costa Rica, they were, uh, 10 and 11.
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Now, they're 18 and 19, or 18 and 17. They're moving back to the states. Uh, my oldest is starting college.
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Uh, my, my second oldest is finishing up this coming January. Uh, she finishes up high school, and we go back to Costa Rica next
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February, minus two kids. Um, so that's a little bit of a transition for us, but the transition back into the
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U .S. is a little bit of a harder contrast, a little bit harder of a change. So, they're going to a conference right, starts today.
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Um, we decided it would not be good parenting for us to just say, hey, kids, get yourself there, and check yourself in, and figure it out.
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So, my wife stayed home to get them into the, uh, into the, to the conference for the, for the next two weeks.
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So, Johnny is home with Katie and Megan in Ireland. Ireland is our youngest daughter. She's 12, and J .D.'s
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11. I wanted J .D. to come with me because, uh, how much do we, do we do together,
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J .D.? A ton. We do a ton together. We, we do, we, we go camping together.
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We go fishing together. Right now, we spend a lot of time together, right? Why? Because I want to influence his life, and I want to spend time together.
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He and I, we go, we picked up fishing since we got back here, and we have been fishing about twice a week since March.
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So, we do a lot of fishing right now. We're gonna look in, in the book of, uh, 2 Timothy, and we're gonna walk through, um, very slowly these seven verses.
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I'm gonna jump over verse two for the most part, and then we're gonna come back to verse two. So, it says in verse one, it says, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
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I'm gonna stop right there. That's how we're gonna do it, kind of work verse by verse here. Um, Paul is the author of 2
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Timothy, okay? He is writing to, obviously, Timothy. Now, who is
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Timothy? So, he calls Timothy here, my true child in the faith. Now, we would think that that means
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Paul led him to Christ, possibly, and that's not the case. We know that, that Timothy came to Christ through the influence of his mother and his grandmother, okay?
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But, but shortly after all of that, they plugged Timothy into the life and ministry of Paul, and Timothy traveled with Paul.
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So, throughout scripture, throughout the gospel, or throughout, uh, the epistles, you'll see, you know, Paul is writing this with Timothy, with Luke, and they're traveling together.
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Paul did life and ministry, um, with people. Paul, you don't see
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Paul going into a town by himself. He always has someone with him, and I think there's, we'll see why in just a minute, why he does that.
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So, Paul poured into the life of Timothy. The book of 1 Timothy is the first letter that he wrote to Timothy, and he's basically saying,
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Timothy, here's how you structure your church. Here's how, Timothy's in the church of Ephesus, and he's saying,
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Timothy, here's how in leadership, elders and deacons, and, and, and here's, here are roles that, that, that we are to be playing within the body of Christ, and, and how the church functions together.
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Then you fast forward to 2 Timothy, and now Paul is, is in prison, uh, could be in a prison, could be in house arrest, kind of up for debate, but Paul is in Rome, and Paul is at the, at the point in his life where he is about to die.
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He knows it. He's on trial right now. It's not going well. He realizes, you know, that pretty much this is not going to end well.
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He's going to die. So what he does is, in 2 Timothy, he writes a letter to Timothy, and he gives him kind of a shotgun approach, almost, of everything he needs, wants
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Timothy to know, uh, before he dies. So you see, 2 Timothy talks about this, and this, and this, and this, and this, a whole lot of stuff, because Paul's writing it, trying to get it out, saying, hey, he may not be around long here, and don't forget these types of things.
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And that's the relationship that, that Paul and Timothy had. So when he says here, in verse 1, uh, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, or that is in Christ Jesus, he's saying this, saying, my true child, as if, as if he has poured his life, and energy, and soul into this young man.
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And he, and he's saying, man, I have, they have this deep, intimate connection. He's like,
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I want you to, to get this, and to pay attention. Verse 2, and what you have heard from me,
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Paul says, in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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We'll come back to this one, but basically, in this one verse, Paul is giving Timothy his philosophy of ministry, okay, his approach to ministry.
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Now, I want to, I'm going to use the word ministry a lot, and I want to give you guys a context of what
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I mean by that. When I talk about ministry, I am not talking about vocational, pastoral ministry, necessarily.
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All right, the ministry that I have, I don't consider it to be like John the missionary, John the pastor.
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This is my, when we build a philosophy of ministry, what I mean is how you and I minister to other people, and do the work that God has for us to do.
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So therefore, if you're working at, you know, where's Rob, if you work at Striker, and how do you, what is your approach to doing that in that context that God has placed you?
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Because yes, pastoral ministry is full -time vocational ministry, but you can be full -time vocational ministry working in multiple jobs.
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It's where God has you to be the biggest influence to those people around you. There are people that you might be able to reach in your work with the gospel of Christ, and the love of Christ, that I wouldn't because they hear
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John's a pastor, or John's a missionary, and they stop listening, or all the walls come up. I saw that a ton when
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I was in the army. I served six years in the army guard, in the infantry as a tow missile gunner, and I didn't go in as a chaplain.
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I thought I was going to be a chaplain because I knew I wanted to be a pastor as well. I went in in the infantry because what
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I found is, is when the chaplain walks in, everyone stops cussing, everyone starts being super spiritual, and everyone goes to church.
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And the reality of it is, that's not the case. And when I went in in the infantry with them, you know, yeah, you're dealing with a lot of garbage, but you're also, they're very real with you.
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And there's the ministry that I could have. We had our our, um, our armor, uh, armorer. He, uh, he died of cancer.
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On his deathbed, they did not call the chaplain. They called my twin brother and I to go in, and to sit with him, and to pray with him.
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When, uh, when a friend of mine, his, his uncle that he was living with committed suicide, they didn't call the chaplain to be there with him, to minister to him.
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They called my, my brother and I because they knew we were Christians, but they also knew that we, we had that relationship with them.
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So when I use the word ministry, think of it in that kind of context. I'm talking about the, the way that you and I can do life with those around us, and use that as an opportunity to share the love of Christ.
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So we'll come back to verse two in a, in a few minutes here. Paul now begins in verse three, share in the suffering as a good soldier of Christ.
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He begins a, a series of three, um, illustrations to define how you and I are to live the
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Christian life, and to do this ministry, um, to those around us to share with it. First, he talks about being a good soldier.
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No soldier, verse four says, He stays focused in what he has to do.
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A good soldier stays focused and obeys the orders and commands that have been given to him.
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Okay? It's important for you and I to obey the commands that, that are given to us, because when we don't, it'll hurt our ministry, our testimony with people around us.
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It'll hurt, um, the opportunities that we could have for future contact and sharing with those around us.
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When we don't obey what God tells us in his word, then there's dangers that we will face in our life.
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Okay? I was, again, in the army. I was, I remember being down in Georgia, and they tell us, um, we had to dig our foxholes to sleep in.
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We're doing a three, three week thing out, out in the field, and it was training, and, uh, you kind of build your, you dig your, your, your, they call them a hooch, but you build your, your, your trench.
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It's kind of a, about body width wise, um, about a foot deep into the ground, and then we put our tents kind of over top of that, and, uh, that's just how we, did our, our tents, and how you camped.
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Um, we're out there, and they tell you, because we're in Georgia in the middle of summer, and it's really hot, uh, they said, you got to make sure, um, because there's a lot of snakes in Georgia, uh, they like to sun themselves, you know, during, during the day, but at nighttime, when it gets a little bit cooler, uh, they like to find something to snuggle up with.
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Um, so they say, you know, don't leave your, your, your, your sleeping bags out, and your gear, when you get in there, you need to shake it, and kind of move it all out.
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I remember being out there, and, uh, about 10, 11, 12 o 'clock at night, hearing a wonderful scream in the middle of the night, when three tents down, the guy woke up with a copperhead, um, cuddled right up next to him.
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Now, didn't bite him, okay? Uh, they had precautions in case he did, but by not obeying, there could have been dire consequences there.
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JD and I, we go camping a lot, um, in Costa Rica, something I never thought I would do. We've camped on an island, um, with howler monkeys, and our, our most recent spot is about 8 ,000 feet up, uh, overlooking the
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Pacific Ocean. We found a, a coffee finca. So these are not campgrounds, these are just places we know someone, we, we drive in the finca,
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I drive my, my 4Runner in there, and we camp. You get bit, you get bit by a snake out there, we're three hours from anything.
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So by not obeying, there could be dire consequences. A good soldier is someone who obeys what is in God's word, and I can go on a lot on this, how do we know what, we have to know what, what we have to obey.
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So you have to be in God's word, studying it, um, but God's word is a, is a, is a guide for you and I, and how we should live our life.
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A good soldier also, um, is someone who, um, he, he doesn't get distracted.
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It says in, in verse, uh, four, no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
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What he's talking about here is, is there are things that, that happen over here that other people need to deal with.
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The good soldier is one that stays focused on the mission at hand, and I don't know about you, but I, I live in a world of distractions, all right.
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I actually, I, I, I have a Garmin, uh, watch, and I'm sitting here in the middle of song, and my watch vibrates and tells me to move because I have those, so I'm, if you see me pacing,
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I'm just trying to get my steps in for the day, in case you're wondering. I'll swing my arm while I, while I walk. Um, we live with distractions all the time, right?
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We have Fitbits that tell us to do stuff. We have our, our, our iPhones and our iPods, and we have our, our computers, and I'm an
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Apple guy, so I've got about everything Apple ever created. A new thing comes out, I'm like, oh, this looks good, you know.
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We just, we get distracted, and yet you realize at the end of the day, I've spent more time on this stuff than I have talking to my neighbor or those people around me.
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I, I, um, I'm taking a class right now, an evangelism class, and, um, one of the challenges is to go six, seven days, uh, with your phone and with everything, everything turned off.
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Um, that's kind of impossible for me to do, but as much as, as possible, I try. Think about our lives without distractions.
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How many of you guys go to camp anywhere, like Bearcow, and you all go to camp somewhere? I spoke at camp two weeks ago in Southern Ohio, and there's no cell phone coverage in that area whatsoever, and there's no technology, and I'll tell you what, it was absolutely incredible to be distraction -free, and how much easier it is to focus on your life and to focus on what
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God's Word tells you to do when you're, when you don't have distractions. So a good soldier is someone who stays focused, someone who's disciplined.
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Uh, verse five, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
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So Paul talks about the, the idea of a, of a soldier. Now he shifts to the, the idea of an, of an athlete, and this happens all the time.
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Uh, Hebrews, uh, 12 .1, Paul talks about the athlete, the runner, throughout
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Scripture all the, all the time, and in Hebrews, the author there is using it, the same metaphor.
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We see the idea of, of running without these hindrances in our life, okay?
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I am not a runner, all right? Jay, Jay knows that. He's, I think he's ran with me before.
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I'm not a runner, okay? Um, I try to. I'm trying to get, you know, three, four miles in every day now, and then
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I plod, and it's really, really bad, but I did the shoes.
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I had no idea how heavy my other shoes were, okay? I had these, um, Solomon shoes. I like them, and they're, they're good trail runner shoes.
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Then I bought these new Nikes, and I'm like, I, I picked up the box, and I literally thought that there were no shoes in it.
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I'm like, oh, well, I opened it up, and the shoes were in there, and you put on a new pair of shoes when you've been wearing, you know, these weights on your feet, and then you put on a new pair of shoes, and you're like,
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I mean, I could run forever, it felt like. I can't, but it felt like it, all right?
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We don't run in blue jeans and long -sleeved shirts, and no, we dress appropriately. Why? Because you don't want that weighting you down.
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Paul's saying, he's telling Timothy here, he's like, he's like, be like a soldier who's disciplined. Be like an athlete who isn't hindered, who's able to run, and then he says here, again, in verse five, you don't get, you don't get it, the prize unless you follow the rules.
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Now, anybody know, this is like an interaction time here, anybody know what happened in the boxing world in 1997?
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What do you, what do you think? All right, there you go, my man, good job. So, I was in college, and this is like pre -UFC days and all that stuff, and we,
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I used to watch boxing a good bit, and we, you did the pay -per -view fights, and they were just astronomical.
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It was like 90 bucks, 120 dollars to do, watch a pay -per -view fight, and our associate pastor was a boxer, so he's like, come to my house.
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So, we all chipped in like 25, 30 bucks. I'm a college student pitching in 30 bucks with no money. I was married at the time, so I really had no money, and it's like, we get there, and you know, the fight starts about eight o 'clock, all the fight cards going on, and Tyson and Holyfield didn't fight until 11, 10, 30, 11 o 'clock, and what happens?
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They get in there, the bell rings, Holyfield goes in, kind of headbutts Tyson once, and they go in and butts heads again, and then
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Tyson bites the top of his ear off. All right, game over, we're done, and a big long story after that, and everything, and all we did, we all sat there and went.
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We spent like over 100 bucks to watch this fight, because it was like the fight,
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Holyfield beat Tyson in a fight prior, took the bell away. It was like, this is all the hype, and you're like, you're killing me, because he didn't follow the rules.
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When you don't follow the rules, there's consequences. There's ramifications to what you do, and for Tyson, it was a major consequence, okay, in his life and in his boxing career, when you don't follow the rules.
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So Paul's saying, be a good soldier, be disciplined, and also, hey, follow the rules. Now God's not about a bunch of rules and checklists that you and I need to do, but he does give us the guide for life, and there are clear black and white things in our lives that we need to obey.
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When you don't follow the rules, there's consequences. Verse six, it's the hard -working farmer who ought to have the first shares of the crops.
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Now, I know nothing about farming except for the fact that I don't want to be a farmer, okay. I'm living in Cedarville right now,
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Cedarville, Ohio. We're in the middle of cornfields, and that's where I grew up, down in that area. So we're either surrounded by cornfields, cows, or soybeans.
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I just know that in the morning, they're out there working on their fields, and at night, when I go to bed, they're still out there working on their fields.
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The job of a farmer is hard, hard work, okay. And he's saying, hey, when you put the time and the energy in, they should be the ones that get the first fruits of this.
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So he says, Paul's talking to Timothy, he's like, be like the soldier, be like the athlete, be like the farmer who's pouring and pouring and pouring into life, doing it the way that God has intended him to do.
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And then he says, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
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He's telling Timothy, pay attention to what I just said. You have to ponder over this, because this is like the key for life and ministry.
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Let's go ahead and do the next one here. So, one more. So what is this talking about?
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2 Timothy 2 .2. It's interesting that verses three to seven come right after 2
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Timothy 2 .2. So what is he talking about, this Christian life that has to be lived as a soldier and as a athlete and as a farmer?
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2 Timothy 2 .2. Paul has poured his life into Timothy, and Paul is telling
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Timothy that, hey, everything that you've seen me do and establish this church and plant this church and do this type of stuff, he's seen
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Paul getting beat and persecuted, he's seen Paul make incredible stands, he's seen Paul teach doctrine and theology, he's seen
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Paul live just a real everyday life with him. He's like, what you've seen, teach that to other people and trust them to people who will be able to tell other people also, who will be able to reproduce that outcome.
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So what is this? Go back one more. Go back one. Killing me. That's good. So, what is discipleship?
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Now, Webster's is like, no help in the area of discipleship. First of all, I was watching, you know, a year, two years ago,
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Piper did a thing, John Piper did a thing on what does it mean to be a disciple or to disciple.
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Disciple could be a verb. I'm going to disciple this person. Or it's, I am a disciple. It could be a noun.
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It's, you know, you have all these type of things. What does it actually mean? Webster says it's one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another such as Christianity.
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So you can have a disciple of Christianity that you're a disciple of Christ wanting to share these doctrines. One of the twelve of the inner circle, like a disciple or apostle, follower of Christ.
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It also says, this is all Webster's, a convinced adherence of a school or an individual.
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So you can have a disciple of Plato, a disciple of Aristotle, or a disciple of Christ. I like, now you can hit it,
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I like Mark Dever's definition, the intentional encouragement of Christians on the basis of deliberate loving relationships and training in God's word.
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I think it's one of the best definitions of discipleship that I've seen because there's a lot of key words. I'm going to hit it again.
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There's a lot of key words in that definition. The idea of intentional and deliberate.
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Discipleship does not happen unless you are intentional about it. In Matthew 28,
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Great Commission, go into all the world preach the gospel, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, you know, teaching to observe all
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I've commanded you, and all these things. You know, the idea, the Great Commission of bringing the gospel to people doesn't happen unless you are intentional about it.
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I do not have what I would consider to be the gift of evangelism. Okay? For me,
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I do the work of an evangelist, and it is work for me. It does not come naturally.
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I have no problem talking about my faith. I just, I just have to work at it. I have to be intentional, deliberate.
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You have to sit there and say, okay, what does discipleship mean? It means I have to be able to focus and say, I want to meet with this person.
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I want to establish these things, a discipleship relationship. Now, it's relational in that throughout the entire
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Old and New Testament, you see relationship being built. God is a God of relationships.
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God does not want you and I to do, to live apart from each other. We see the whole formation of the church.
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One of the biggest aspects of a local church is that you and I are to be living and doing life together. Why is that?
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Because God loves community. God realizes that you and I need each other.
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We need people to help us, to encourage us, and to spur us on in godliness. It is relational.
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Discipleship doesn't happen unless you have a relationship. I may not know, you know, who you are, although I do know who you are.
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I may not know who you are, and I say, let's sit down and we can study together. And there's some information that you will learn, but how much more do you learn when you know that person?
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You know that person cares about you. You pay attention to it. I'll go back to my father -in -law.
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There was a change in our relationship from the guy that was dating his daughter, to the guy that was going to marry his daughter, to where now he and I, we teach together.
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And we were down a year ago, two years ago, he taught the doctrine of the Bible, Bibliology. I taught hermeneutics together.
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Okay, we teach side by side now, and we bounce ideas off each other. That relationship, how's that changed?
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Time that we spent together, the relationship side of it. Loving. By this we know that they are loved.
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He lays down his life for us, 1 John 3 16 says. The idea of loving someone well.
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I am not a traditionally a touchy -feely sort of person. All right? God has softened me a lot over the last six, eight years in that area.
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I'm just not a touchy -feely emotional person. But I realize that many times when people are going through hard times, they don't want your answers.
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They just want an armor around them. And that is what discipleship is.
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Discipleship is training. There is an aspect of training and teaching in discipleship.
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There's an aspect of, I want to impart information into someone's life. How do we do that?
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Think through that. How do you and I, how can we teach someone? We teach through our example. We teach through words.
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We teach through illustrations. Christ gave parables left and right by using things that were around him.
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We look for teachable moments. If you're a parent, you might know that context.
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My son is here today because I want him to come with me. I want to spend time with him. I want him to see that life and ministry, that we do this together.
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It's a teachable moment, a teachable time that we can work together. When you go through hard times, it's a time we sit down as a family and we talk about that.
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We use those situations. It's about training.
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Second Timothy 2 .2. My philosophy of ministry, approach to ministry, comes out of Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, which basically says that he gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds, and teachers, people in leadership of churches, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
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The whole idea of my job as a leader is not to just do it and get a bunch of people following me.
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My job as a leader is to equip people to help them be involved in God's work.
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Go ahead and hit it again. One more. There are two main approaches when it comes to discipleship and how we do that.
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We'll just sit on this slide for a little while here. There is the, for lack of a better word, there's the job security approach, and then there's the losing approach, the job losing approach.
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The job security approach, there are several ways that you and I try to do that. I'm guilty of all of these at some time in my life.
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Someone who's meeting with someone and wants to disciple them and encourage them, for the job security, they feel the need to control.
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They want to control the environment. They want to control the situation. They want to control the topics. They want to control everything. They feel significant when they are needed.
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They want to have that feeling of being needed. When that person calls them, they get excited about that phone call because that person needs them.
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They feel threatened when other people influence that person. So when someone speaks into the life of my son, if I'm in this job security approach, the idea is
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I don't want anybody speaking into him but me. Okay? Because he's mine.
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He's my little project. They feel busy all the time because they need to be doing everything.
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They need to be involved in everything, and they're always busy because they need to have their hands in it all. The job losing approach is a little bit different.
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They're more concerned about the disciple than they are about themselves. And that's when you know in your life, if you're getting this, is when you get the 2 a .m.
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phone call. Right? We've all had those times probably when someone's called you at 1 or 2 in the morning, and you're like, oh, do
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I answer it? Do I not answer it? Do I answer it? Do I not answer it? You know, someone who is building in the life of someone else is going to take a deep breath and is going to answer the phone.
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It's not always fun, but they're going to do it. They give of their time and their energy.
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Discipleship is not an easy thing to do because it requires something out of you.
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They're willing to be hurt, and they're willing to be disappointed. People are people, and we all make mistakes.
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And some of us make big mistakes in our lives. And when you pour, you pour into someone, and you show them
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God's word, and you want to share your life with them, and you see them make a mistake, it hurts.
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But you also see God working through that. Someone who's more concerned about the person they're discipling is someone who looks past those mistakes, those problems, and many times those sins, and is able to pour into them.
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And finally, they work themselves out of a job. They work themselves out of a job. You don't want to be needed.
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You want to make this person so I can pour into his life so that they are independent, and now they are able to go out and disciple other people.
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Next. Go ahead. Next slide. One more. So I'm sitting at the
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T4G conference, the Together for the Gospel conference. Several of you guys went down there to that, and it was kind of neat because I'm sitting down, and we're about three quarters of the way up the seats, and I look to my left is my father -in -law.
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He's sitting here, and we're getting ready to sing with, you know, 12 ,000 of our best friends.
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And he's sitting here, and to my—I was to my right, sorry—to my left was a guy by the name of Esteban.
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And Esteban is a pastor that lives up in Santa Rosa de Apocosol, and I flew him up to the
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T4G conference because I thought, you know, this is something really good for him. He's bilingual, and this would be really, really good for him.
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And all of a sudden, it kind of hit me in my first time. It hit me like, this is what Paul is talking about.
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For my whole life, or at least 30 years of my life, my father -in -law has poured into my life.
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And then I look beside me, and for the last five years, I've been pouring into the life of Esteban.
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Esteban's a pastor. He's a young guy. He's a pastor of this church up there, and he then is also pouring into the life of his church.
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That is what—that is the goal. That is what we are looking for in how we do life.
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So think about yourselves. You can go back to the application. Think about yourselves. Application always has two ingredients, or it's not an application.
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It's a principle. Application always has time, and it always has an action. Okay? I can say my principle is
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I need to disciple someone. That's a principle. All right? But what does it do to you? Has it changed anything?
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Application always has time. It always has action. This week, this month, this year,
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I will do something. I want you guys to think here real quick as we wrap this up.
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Who in your life can you disciple? Who in your life can you disciple?
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As a parent, obviously, I can disciple my kids. That's a given. Okay? And I need to be intentional about that.
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But who else in your life do you know that you can build into? Someone at work?
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Someone here? They don't have to be younger than you to disciple them. All right?
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You can—you can—it's a spiritual thing. It's not so much an age thing.
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And I want to pour into my son, but I want my son pouring into the life of someone else as well at 11 years old.
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Who is it that you can be building your life into, spending the time that needs to be spent? We moved back to Cedarville for one year, and within three weeks or so of being home,
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I find out that my wife is already meeting with a girl, a college student that we had met, that she's meeting with once a month.
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It's a life—it's a lifestyle of pouring into someone else.
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I'm not saying that to build her up or to build us up in what we're doing. I'm saying it's a lifestyle, a life change that we make.
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Do you live a life that pours into other people, or am
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I—or am I—am I surrounded by all these distractions, and I focus so much on myself and everything around me?
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So what's your application? I'm gonna let you—you come up with your own. What's your application? Who is it that you need to pour yourself into?
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Who is it that you need to—to build up and encourage, and when are you going to do that? Otherwise, you just sat here, and you listen to a good talk, and—and you go home.
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Is it this week? Is it next month? Is it next time I talk to this person, I will do something? For me, it's—I have three guys that I have been working with that, as I'm studying this—this whole week,
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I thought, you know what? I need to get reconnected with those guys. So this next week, while my two daughters are gone, and I'm a little less distractions,
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I am going to email these three guys and just reconnect with them and see how they're doing, encourage them.