The Growth of a Disciple 1 : Timothy’s Conversion

Acts 16:1-3 ; 2 Timothy 1:1-9

I am going to read the first three verses, which introduce us to a young man called Timothy. And you will see in a few minutes why I am reading this. This comes during Paul’s second missionary journey. And it says,

“He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek.”

And Lystra, by the way, is in Turkey, so neither of them are on their home territory. But it was a mixed marriage.

“The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.

“Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.”

Then if you jump over to 2 Timothy, the last of Paul’s 13 letters, and I want to just read a few verses there from the first chapter where Paul is now an old man and Timothy is in Ephesus where he is leading the church there. And Paul writes this second letter to him saying,

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

“To Timothy, my dear son:

“Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.

“I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life.”

What comes to mind when I use the word disciple? What does that word conjure up?

Well I think for some of us it will conjure up in our minds the twelve disciples, the twelve apostles of Jesus.

Maybe you think of some figures in a stained glass window with a halo around their head. Maybe you think of a learner, which is the literal meaning of the word disciple, sitting at the feet of a teacher.

You might even think to call somebody a disciple is bordering on a little fanatical, maybe over the top.

But I wonder how many of us, when I asked you what you thought of when you hear the word disciple, thought immediately of yourself.

If I said to you, “What is a disciple?” would you say, “That is very simple; I am one”?

Because actually that is what our business is about here this morning. Before the Lord Jesus Christ descended, He gave His disciples their marching orders, so to speak, and He did that on several occasions, said slightly different things on each occasion. But He said in Matthew 28,

“Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.”

“That’s your job,” He said. “Make disciples.”

Not collect decisions, a decision – a moment in which you say, “Yes” to Jesus Christ is vital of course. But that isn’t the object; that may be a necessary means. Not go and make members of your church. Not go and get people into heaven by the skin of their teeth, but with very little expectation of change here and now in this life.

“Go,” He says “and make disciples of all nations.”

And therefore we have to ask the important question, “What does it mean to make a disciple?” If we don’t know what that means, we actually don’t know what we’re doing here this morning, because that is why we are here.

Now, for a number of weeks I have talked about the church and how that men and women, boys and girls are baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. He is the Head and we are members of that body. His Spirit is the life and energy of that body. And we have talked about this over a number of weeks.

And we were talking then about the corporate nature of believers together in that one body. But if the church is corporate, it is made up of individual disciples.

And so I thought it would be valuable to take just a few weeks to look at a case history of a disciple and in so doing, define what a disciple is.

And I think the best way to do that is, rather than talking in sort of abstract or propositional terms, talk in terms of a living person who has had to come into that relationship with Jesus Christ that has not just forgiven them of their past but equipped them here and now to live a life that is effective and fruitful, which is what discipleship is going to involve.

And the case history is this young man, Timothy - young for much of what we know about him in the New Testament. And one of the famous discipling relationships in the New Testament is of course that of Paul and Timothy.

Their relationship began on Paul’s first missionary journey – we’ll talk about that in a moment – and goes right through to the very last letter Paul wrote when he was waiting and expecting to die, the letter of 2 Timothy, when he was an old man. And Timothy by then was probably middle years.

But the beginning of their relationship would have been when Timothy was very young.

And I am calling this “The Growth of a Disciple” and over several weeks I want to look at Timothy as an example of what makes a disciple, what is a disciple, what makes a disciple, what can a disciple expect his or her life to include.

Let me summarize what we know of Timothy in a nutshell. He is not mentioned until Paul’s second missionary journey when he came to Lystra and he is described there as being a disciple. And it is very likely that he was actually converted when Paul came to Lystra on his first missionary journey a little over a year before.

The reason why I say that is because several times Paul speaks of Timothy as “my son in the faith” or similar words. And that would indicate that Paul saw Timothy as a young man that he had led to Christ, and therefore his son in the faith. And on the second missionary journey that he went on he picked him up in Lystra, took him on the rest of that journey.

When it came to Paul’s third missionary journey, he sent Timothy ahead of him to Philippi to do some things with the believers there. And then he sent him to Thessalonica, then he sent him to Corinth, and finally he sent him to Ephesus, where he is when Paul wrote two letters to him.

The first letter, 1 Timothy, is a letter about how to manage the church. He explains that – how people ought to conduct themselves in the church of the living God. And he explains lots of things about managing the church.

2 Timothy is about managing himself. “Okay, Timothy, you’re the pastor of the church in Ephesus. It’s one thing to manage the church; it’s another thing to manage yourself.”

Every church should know something about 1 Timothy. Every pastor – but I won’t limit it to that – every Christian should know something about 2 Timothy, where he talks about, hey, don’t be timid, don’t be ashamed, be prepared to suffer, be like a soldier, be like an athlete, be like a farmer.

And then he says, when he has given them that high list of things, (“Wow, that is out of my depth”) but remember Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and Jesus Christ is your strength for all of this. That’s a summary of 2 Timothy.

Now, we therefore have a lot of information about Timothy that helps us to piece together and, in some ways, to reconstruct something of Timothy’s life in order to help us understand what it means to be a real disciple and to grow as a disciple.

And this morning I want to just talk about two things about his circumstances, what we know about his particular circumstances from which he came. And then we will talk about his conversion. So there are really the beginning issues of his life.

Regarding his circumstances, he came from a mixed family in two ways. Ethnically he was mixed because his father was a Greek and his mother was a Jew. Now I think it is interesting they live in Turkey. You may know that the Jews and Gentiles did not get on and for his mother to marry a Gentile will be perceived as being an unequal marriage. And probably there was some ostracism that came because of that.

So they were mixed from their ethnic background but it was a mixed family also because his mother was a believer and the likely inference from what Paul says is that his father was not.

2 Timothy 1:5:

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”

And it is very significant he does not mention his father as having a sincere faith, probably because his father didn’t.

And so the likelihood is that Timothy is not just in a mixed family – a Jewish mother and a Gentile Greek father – but also it was mixed spiritually in that his mother was a Christian, his grandmother was a Christian, but his father was not.

And so he grew up with all the tensions that would imply, tensions that some of you know a very lot about. Maybe from a racially mixed marriage - you know the ostracism that that can sometimes lead to, as it probably did to Timothy.

From a spiritually mixed family where maybe one parent is a believer and the other is not, and maybe you are the believing parent in a marriage with children and the difficulty and the hardship of seeking to convey to your child or your children the Gospel of Jesus Christ whilst your husband or your wife is antagonistic towards that.

Eunice, his mother, loved the Lord, as did his grandmother Lois. And she was very careful to teach Timothy Scripture from the time he was a child, because Paul refers to that in 2 Timothy 3:15. He says,

“…how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Although your husband did not cooperate in this, I know, Eunice has taught you the Word of God from infancy.

And that of course is one of the very important responsibilities of Christian parents, whether you are a parent who is a lone Christian in your family, or whether you are both believers.

Putting our children in Sunday school is very important but it is not enough. We need to be reading the Word of God to them, teaching the Word of God to our children. Now how you do that in your family is something you have to work out with your family timetable. But spending time when you pray together and you read the Scriptures together when they are young is vitally important to embed the Word of God into their hearts.

Gypsy Smith was an evangelist, very famous evangelist in the early part of the 20th Century and when I was young I read his autobiography. It had a big impact on me. But he told the story how that when he was preaching somewhere a lady came to him and told him that she wanted to be a missionary but she had six children so it was going to be very difficult for her.

And Gypsy Smith said to her, “That is absolutely fantastic. Not only has God called you to be a missionary, but He has given you a mission field without having to leave home.” And so it is. If God has given you children, He has given you a mission field right in your home.

And although she was a single Christian parent – not a single parent, but a single Christian parent with no father to support the spiritual development of Timothy, she – and notice also the grandmother; that is important too; that is a great role grandparents can have – taught him the Word of God from childhood.

Let me take a moment, not because this is a commercial, but many of you know Mrs. Griffiths, Mrs. Kitty Griffiths who has a radio program called “A Visit with Mrs. G”, which is heard right around the world on hundreds of radio stations.

I was driving yesterday and turned on my radio and heard her voice telling beautifully one of the Bible stories, and some of you are familiar with these stories. This is just one way to teach children the Word of God.

And we have made available this morning a small selection – there is a much larger variety of stories – Adam and Eve, Noah, Joseph, Ruth, some of these important stories of people in the Bible. And they are very biblical. They are fleshed out to make them into great stories for children, but not added to in the sense of any substance, just made so that kids can latch onto it, enjoy it and understand it. And I want recommend parents or grandparents, if you have got children (and young children is anybody under 99 I think these are good for), get hold of some of these, take them as Christmas presents so that driving in the car or sitting at home, children can listen to some of these stories and become familiar with the ways of God and the Word of God.

Because you see, one day when there comes a moment of harvesting, what you harvest is the seed that has been sown. Resist the temptation to bring about premature new birth by forcing the issue, and children of course are very vulnerable, so just be careful of forcing the issue. I know out of good motives sometimes we say, “Just pray the prayer”. Give God His time to work in their hearts to reveal to them themselves and Christ in a way that they know that they need to come to know Him for themselves.

But one of the very important roles of Christian parents and Christian grandparents modelled here by Timothy’s grandmother is to teach the Word of God to our young children.

And this would have played a vital role in why it was that he was converted when he was. He had roots into the Word of God.

Let me talk secondly about his conversion, because as I mentioned just now, Timothy is mentioned first in Acts 16 when Paul sets off on his missionary journey. But because he had been to Lystra on a previous visit, calls Timothy “my son in the Lord” or “my son in the faith”, we can fairly confidently conclude that Paul had led him to Christ.

He had grown up with a believing mother and a believing grandmother, but there comes a time when often somebody new comes into the scene – not with a new message but somebody fresh that enables us to think freshly about it again. And that seems to have happened here.

And the circumstances in which Timothy would have been converted on that first visit to Lystra are very interesting – in fact they are very dramatic. Paul wrote to Timothy later in 2 Timothy 3 when he said,

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings…”

I’d love to preach a series on each of those words sometime. Paul says, “Timothy, you have seen all these things.” And then he says,

“…what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, and the persecutions I endured.”

In other words, he says, “Timothy, you know all about me, and there are various ways in which you have learned all these things about me, but you remember what happened in Lystra when I first came into your town and the persecutions I endured.”

And do you remember what happened in Lystra? You will find it in Acts Chapter 14; you can read it sometime. Let me tell you the story.

When Paul came into Lystra with Barnabas for the first time they didn’t know any believers there and they met a man who was crippled from birth. And under Paul’s ministry to him, he was supernaturally healed. He jumped up, began to walk and run all over the place, and the crowds went wild. And the crowds gathered around and began to say, “The gods have come down to us in human form.” Because they knew this man; they had seen him on the streets ever since his birth. “The gods have come down!”

And they made garlands and wreaths and they took bulls to sacrifice to them and they gave Barnabas the name Zeus, one of their gods. They gave Paul the name Hermes, one of their gods. They said they gave him that name because he was the chief speaker so Hermes would have had something to do with oratory and speaking.

And Paul and Barnabas swept into this euphoric response and this deifying of them, got up and Paul said, “Stop! We are only men. We are human like you.” In other words, “Stop this nonsense.”

And then he said this:“We came to bring you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things - these offering of bulls and sacrifice and so on to gods that don’t exist. We came to tell you to turn from these worthless things to the living God.”

And then he took time to explain this. And following his explanation, you have the biggest pendulum swing in history, because on the one hand, they were saying, “you are like gods and we want to worship you.” But some men came down from Antioch where Paul had been just shortly before, and they told the crowd, “Don’t you trust these men. These men are out to corrupt you.” And the pendulum swung from calling them gods to them wanting to kill them.

And they stoned Paul and they stoned him until they thought he was dead. They left him on the ground in a pool of his own blood, inevitably, because stoning is brutal, with broken bones, swollen eyes no doubt, unconscious, assumed to be dead. And in due course Paul came around, got up and it says he went back into the city.

Where did he go? We don’t know, of course, but if Eunice and her mother Lois in the city were some of the early believers and Paul had made their acquaintance, he might well have gone to find some refuge in their home.

If I were Paul, I would have gotten up and gone the other way, by the way. He went back into the city. And I can imagine him – and this is just a reconstruction that may or may not be true, but I suggest it to you. He went back into the city, found these believers, found Eunice in her home. He is battered, he is bruised, bones are broken; he is bleeding, his eyes probably puffy, swollen, and he says to Timothy, “Timothy, would you like to be a disciple too?”

“You remember what happened to me in Lystra, Timothy. You remember my persecutions. Timothy, you want to be a disciple?”

And Timothy said, “Yes.” Looking at the battered, bleeding, broken body of Paul, who as a disciple of the Lord Jesus exposed himself to such wrath and anger. “You want to be a disciple?”

“Yes I do.”

You know, there are fair-weather Christians. That is, as long as the sky is blue and the sun is shining and the grass is green and God is doing everything for me that is nice, why not be a Christian? But the moment it starts to get tough, the moment things seem to go wrong, the moment there are things, which I do not like, we get angry at God.

That’s what I love about Job. Job, you remember, who lost everything, a victim of satanic attack. He lost his business, he lost his children, and it says that he fell on his face and worshipped, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave; the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be blessed. What happens to me is not my reason for trusting God.”

And Timothy knew right from the start that there is a cost to being a true disciple. No wonder when Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:8, he said,

“Join with me in suffering for the gospel.”

Later he says in 2 Timothy 3:12,

“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

That’s not a text that we stick on the wall. That is not a promise that we claim these days. And Timothy knew this right from the start. He knew that surrender to Jesus Christ, as he had seen in Paul, might mean opposition, it might mean persecution, it might mean trouble, it might mean being left bleeding on the ground assumed to be dead. It might mean that – it doesn’t have to mean that. There is no virtue in suffering for its own sake.

But if you are going to be My disciple, is the invitation of Jesus Christ, as we saw last week, you have to deny yourself, take up your cross – whatever that means.

And when Paul explained in Lystra what conversion really is and Timothy heard it from Paul on that first visit, this is what he said to them – and this is in a nutshell Acts 14:15,

“We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God.”

Notice that there is a turning from these worthless things. And there is a turning to. You know sometimes we are happy about the turning from – we like the benefit and convenience of a cleansed conscience. We like the fact that we are justified before God, meaning that we no longer stand responsible for those things which Christ has borne in our place. And we love the freedom of that. We turn from.

But there is a turning to God, and the turning to God that Paul talked about there is one in full surrender that may involve cost. And every generation has to face this.

You know there is a tendency that every generation tries to weaken the Gospel that they heard. And that in turn becomes weakened again. But a weak Gospel produces a weak church and a weak church preaches an even weaker Gospel and an even weaker Gospel produces an even weaker church until you look around and it’s non-existent anymore.

You know in the last decades there have been churches closing throughout Toronto where buildings still exist but the people inside are not enough to sustain the cost of the building, and they are closing down. Why? Because we have lost the Gospel.

In my country of Great Britain, all over Britain there are church buildings as were that have now become furniture stores or converted into warehouses or homes or restaurants. And in fact I was reading a British paper this last week and there was an article on the number of churches closing down in Britain, and a government minister commenting on this. And here is the report; I quote part of the report. It says,

“Empty churches should be turned into gyms, bars, restaurants or multi-faith centres,” a government minister said last week. “While it is important to preserve the architectural beauty of some churches, they may better serve the community by becoming secular buildings,” he said.

This is the government, a representative of the government commenting on the fact that our Gospel has become so weakened and so pathetic that nobody wants it anymore. Of course they don’t. It’s a weak Gospel that produces empty churches; it’s a strong Gospel that produces strong churches.

Don’t ever worry about turning people away by the demands of discipleship that we have in the New Testament. We will lose some of course, but we will lose the chaff, not the wheat. And Jesus was never afraid to lose potential disciples – sometimes, I am sure, to the embarrassment of His own disciples.

Remember that occasion when He was coming out of Jericho and there was a rich young man. One Gospel tells us he was a ruler, so we call him the rich young ruler. It says he ran to Jesus, obviously broke through the crowd, and fell on his knees in front of Jesus and asked the most brilliant question, “Good Master, what must I do to receive eternal life?”

I am sure the crowd who were there, and the disciples in particular, thought, “Boy, this guy really means business. Fantastic!”

And Jesus said, “What about the commandments?”

He said, “Which?”

Jesus began to recite them. He had got about halfway through and the man interrupted and said, “All these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Then Jesus said, “You are a rich man. Take your possessions, sell them and give the proceeds away to the poor.”

And it says the man went away very sad because he had great wealth – sad.

And what did Jesus do? Did He run after him and say, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you like that. I’m sorry. Come back. Come back. Let’s talk about this. I mean you’d like eternal life, you said. You want to go to heaven; is that right? You do? Okay. Let’s see.

“Would you like to have your sins forgiven? You haven’t got many by the sound of it. You say you kept those laws. I don’t actually believe you but you would like to have your sins forgiven? You would? Okay.

“Now, you’re a rich man, is that right? Would you like Me to tell you how to spend your money? No, you have plans already? Okay, no, don’t get uptight about that. We’ll leave that one out.

Are you single? Would you like Me to lead you as to who you should marry? I beg your pardon? What’s her name you say? Well, maybe she doesn’t have a name. Maybe I want you to stay single. The point is not what’s her name; the point is do you want My will or yours? You can handle that. Okay. Fine. If you get stuck you can always come and pray and we’ll try and help you but we’ll leave that to you.

“On the Day of Pentecost after I have ascended, I am going to send the Holy Spirit – My Father will send the Holy Spirit to fill My disciples. Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost? What’s that? As long as nothing funny happens? Okay, all right, well just keep your mouth shut and keep your hands in your pocket and we’ll keep it calm for you.

“Well by the look of this list here, you really wanted your sins to be forgiven to go to heaven when you die. Is that right? It is right, okay. All right, well I’ll tell you what. That’s great. I’m so glad that you know that you need that. Let Me leave you in a little
prayer; welcome to the family. I’ll warn you though. Later, you probably will want to come back and get rededicated because this really isn’t going to be as satisfying as it should be, but anyway, at least if you get hit by a camel tomorrow, you will know where you are going.”

Is that what Jesus said? Of course it wasn’t. That’s the popular Gospel. We may not say it quite as bluntly as that, but we say, “Hey, folks, you’ve got need – here’s a great need-meeter! He’ll forgive you, cleanse your conscience, take you to heaven when you die, fix your problems; if you get sick don’t worry, He’ll fix it. And we wonder why it is we have so few disciples.

You see we cannot be a disciple on our own terms. We cannot come to the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “I want to be a disciple and this is what I am willing to give. Is that okay?”

I’m flying from Toronto to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv tonight. If I go to the airport and go up to the check-in desk of Lufthansa and say, “Look I want to get to Tel Aviv on Lufthansa. I think your fares are ridiculous and what I’ve done is I’ve written a ticket here of my own and I’ll give you the money of course. I’ll give you $100 if that’s fine and just let me on with that.” Do you think they would? I can always try it and see, but I doubt it; of course they won’t.

But we come to Jesus. “Okay, You are offering what I need. You are going to a destination I want to go to. Okay, I would like that. I really would like that. I am not willing to pay full price. I would like to off You a kind of cut price.”

And it’s possible to become a pseudo-disciple, which is to become a disciple on our own terms. And you know Jesus, as I said just now, didn’t bend over backwards to keep people. In fact He let people go.

In John 6:66 He had talked about discipleship and it says,

“From this time many of his disciples” (notice they were already His disciples), “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

Notice that. Very interesting. There were those who already were His disciples and they said to themselves, “Man, this is far bigger than I ever thought. I don’t want this.” And they turned back.

Which is why, of course, if you preach a full Gospel, you will lose Christians. And Jesus did already. But don’t run after them.

And then He said to His disciples,

“ ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve.”

“Peter, James, Andrew, John, James the younger, Thaddeus, Judas, Thomas, you want to go? If you do, go. But if you stay, you stay on My terms.” And Peter said,

“To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

When Jesus gave an invitation to discipleship, He opened the back door as well as the front door. “You are welcome to come in and you are equally free to go out.”

“And many walked no more with Him.”

You see the true Gospel is a costly Gospel – not costly in terms of earning anything. We earn nothing. But in terms of what the issues of discipleship are, which are a full unconditional surrender. That’s a full Gospel, that’s a strong Gospel.

Martin Luther, the catalyst of the Reformation said, “A Christianity that gives nothing, costs nothing and suffers nothing is worth nothing.” And he was writing that from his own context and his own observation.

And Timothy right from the start knew that this discipleship is costly. As a young man he had been with a battered, bruised, broken, bleeding Paul. He knew, as Paul says in 2 Timothy, “You remember what happened to me at Lystra, you remember the persecutions I endured. Timothy, you remember that is when you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ and you knew right from the start this may be very costly business.”

I repeat there is no virtue in suffering in itself. It’s just the willingness that I am now available to God and if that involves suffering, then so be it.

And sometimes in a sincere attempt to bring people to Christ we cushion all of that and we play it all down probably with the intention, “Well let’s just deal with the fundamentals. Okay come to Jesus, be forgiven and then afterwards we can deal with these other issues.”

And I know Jesus dealt with people differently, of course. When He dealt with the woman at Samaria He didn’t talk about these issues. When He met with Nicodemus He didn’t talk about these issues. He met them at the point of their need. But all these issues are inclusive within the Gospel.

But I fear that sometimes when we attempt to explain the Gospel in a way that is palatable, attractive – and of course the Gospel is attractive, because it is all about knowing Christ and that’s what makes it attractive, and being reconciled to God – but sometimes it’s as though we are advertising a Caribbean Cruise and we tell people there is this great cruise coming up that you can go on if you want to. And there’s great food on this cruise and you visit some wonderful places and there’s lots to do. There are six swimming pools on deck. There’s lots of entertainment every night and the best part about it all is that it’s free, and so people sign up – of course they do.

I get phone calls from people saying, “Did you know you’ve won a free cruise in the Caribbean?”

I say, “I think that is highly unlikely but thank you for taking the time to tell me though. What’s the catch?”

“Oh no, there’s no catch.”

“Of course there’s a catch. Bye.”

And so they say, “Let’s go on this Caribbean cruise and they go down to the dock and they look for this big white ship with a beautiful name, Caribbean Princess, along the side.

And there is no big white ship there; there’s just a big dirty grey ship. There’s no name, Caribbean Princess; there’s just a big number on the side. There are no swimming pools on the deck. There are guns on the deck and they discover they’ve joined the Navy and they have been tricked.

That’s what we do with the Gospel sometimes. Okay, of course the Gospel is attractive and appealing and meets us at the point of need, but my response to that is more than just when my needs are being met. And Jesus is the wonderful provider of my needs, but it involves a surrender of all that I am.

And if that is going to involve suffering, as it did for Paul, as Timothy is encouraged to be ready for that, we live in a country where we celebrate the freedoms and we are so grateful for the freedom we have to live the Christian life and preach the Gospel. But the danger with that is that we become complacent with that.

Now it’s true discipleship is full of positives as well as what may sound like negatives. You know we saw last week in Matthew 16 when Jesus said, “If anyone will come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross” – all that sounds negative. And then He says, “Whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

As you lose you life, as you give your life away to Jesus Christ, as I said last week, Jesus Christ will give His life away to you and you find life in all its fullness.

This is not some sentimental “faith journey” that’s about my own fulfillment; this is denying myself, dying to myself and losing my life that Jesus Christ might take it and I find fulfillment in His working in us and through us.

That’s why Paul could say, “I would like to depart and be with Christ.” (He said this to the Philippians). “I would be better by far, but to stay in the body is more needful on your account. To live is Christ. To die is gain.” He says, “Either way I win.”

Yes it is costly. He was writing that from the Roman prison, deprived of his freedom. But to live is Christ, even though it looks costly and is costly. It is also deeply satisfying.

And this is not a super version of being a disciple, and by the way, the word Christian was a nickname given to disciples in Antioch. It says the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Now we tend to say there are two categories – there’s a Christian and a disciple. Are they the same thing? No, there’s a Christian, which is kind of down here somewhere and there’s a disciple, which is kind of fanatical up here somewhere.

But this discipleship is actually normality according to the New Testament. This is not a super deluxe version; it’s normality. Watchman Nee wrote, “The average Christian life is so sub-normal that the normal Christian life appears to be abnormal.”

But normality is Jesus saying to this rich young ruler, “Sell your possessions, give them away to the poor.” Not because it is wrong to be rich – of course it’s not wrong to be rich. But no man can serve to masters. He’ll love the one and hate the other. You cannot serve God or mammon or money or materialism – those words are used in different translations. And He was saying, “Your problem is you have already got a master. So get rid of your master. Then follow Me.”

And because Jesus had obviously diagnosed him rightly, he said, “No, that’s the very thing I cannot let go of.” And he went away sad. Why sad? Because I actually want eternal life, I really want it. I came running, I fell on my knees in full view of the crowd, but this is my master; I can’t let it go.”

And Jesus said, “Okay, good-bye.”

You see this is normal Christian living. And we have to be interested in true New Testament discipleship. And we’re going to pick this up next time and look at Timothy because Timothy, despite this coming to Christ in such a dramatic context as the occasion when Paul had been left for dead, and whether Paul went back to his home or not, it was in that context that Timothy seemingly was converted.

Paul had to write to Timothy years later and say, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power, of love and of self-discipline, because Timothy, you are a little timid.” He suggests that several times to him fan into flame, stir up the gift in you, Timothy. You’re a little timid.

You know, starting well, means you need encouragement all along the line. Timothy needed that and we’re going to see that.

But I ask you as I finish this morning, what is the quality of your discipleship? Of course you are not perfect; nobody is. Timothy wasn’t, Paul wasn’t; nobody is. But what is the state of your heart towards God? Is it a conditional surrender? (I will surrender provided I keep – like the rich young ruler – I will keep what is mine and You can have the rest).

Or is it an unconditional surrender? Not a cost we pay for our salvation but the exchange that is necessary in true repentance. True repentance is not just saying, “I am sorry for what I have done”. True repentance is turning from what I am and all that is part of me to God and all that He is.

And I ask this question too of some of us this morning, are you truly born again? The Spirit bears witness with our spirit so we are the children of God, says Paul. Is that the kind of spiritual life you have? It’s alive as opposed to simply a belief and you are trying to follow this thing but it’s pushing a bus up a hill. Or is there life and that life has appetite and this Word is where your appetite is fed?

Or have you maybe been a disciple but the cost is such that you have been compromising and turning from Christ to do your own thing? You have been one of those that walked no more with Him. You need to come back. You can still be in church every week and not be walking with Jesus. But it’s your life that is surrendered.

If we want to understand what any church is about, any biblical church is about, we have to understand what discipleship is about because the church has one job description: make disciples. It’s what we’re here for this morning. Anything less than that is fraudulent to the purposes of Jesus Christ.

It’s to make disciples who love Him and trust Him and obey Him and live for Him and whose lives are surrendered in every part. And there is actually no life that is more exciting than that because somebody bigger than you is in charge, somebody bigger than you anticipates every turn on the road and through it all works out His purpose.

And we may be battered and bruised and broken and bleeding like Paul, maybe not physically, emotionally – we have laws about that in this country – so maybe not physically, but emotionally or tension-wise or in a family context where Christ is not loved, or in a workplace where you are alone as a believer. You say, “Lord, thank You for the privilege of being in this place at this time, You in me, can being showing Yourself.”

And where the opposition is strong, it’s often because Christ is seen clearly. That’s why they oppose.

I am going to lead you in prayer as we close. And if you are not living in this relationship, a full and complete surrender, irrespective of the consequences, I am going to ask you to pray and just say, “Lord, in the words of that lovely hymn, All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give.”

Let’s pray together. Lord Jesus, we are so grateful that You have brought us to a place like this, this morning, and You have brought us – most of us in this building – into a relationship with Yourself. We will be eternally grateful for that.

And we are here this morning not because it is something we do on a Sunday, it’s our hobby; we’re not just here to tip our hat towards You. We are here, Lord Jesus, because we really do want to be Your disciples. We want to be men and women who know the freedom and liberty of being fully surrendered to You where all the issues of our life are place on Your shoulders, the governance is upon Your shoulders, not ours. Where we can say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. All that we have committed to You, You have undertaken to keep. And our lives are going to be meaningful, we are going to bear fruit, and we thank You for the privilege of that. But Lord, help us to let go of the things which seduce us and drag us away and the lies of the evil one would keep us from surrendering ourselves wholly to You.

And maybe there are some this morning, you would like to pray these words with me – Lord Jesus, thank You that You love me and You call me into a relationship with Yourself, a relationship of full surrender, where I give myself fully to You and You give Yourself fully to me so that I might live in the fullness of Jesus Christ. I know I have to re-confront these issues again and again. I will need to do it tomorrow and the next day. But Lord in my heart I say, to You I surrender all that I am irrespective of the consequences. I pray it in Jesus’ Name, Amen.