The Growth of a Disciple

2 Timothy 2:1-10

If you have got your Bible I am going to read to you some verses from 2 Timothy and Chapter 2. That is towards the end of the New Testament – 2 Timothy and Chapter 2.

While you turn there, let me just mention that next Sunday morning will be our Christmas service. It’s the Sunday before Christmas, the last Sunday before Christmas, and we will have a service, which is especially geared to those who may not be familiar with the meaning and significance of Christmas.

In other words, we will explain what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is and why He was born and lived and died and was raised again from the dead. And I encourage you to bring folks with you. You may have people you invited to the concert last weekend. Over 7,000 folks were here for that, and you might like to invite them to come back next Sunday with you, maybe take them for lunch afterwards. And we trust it will be an enriching time of facing again the fundamental issue of why Jesus Christ was born. And so that will be next Sunday morning.

Now let me read to you from 2 Timothy 2. And I read these verses last time, two weeks ago. We are looking at what I have called the case history of a disciple and using Timothy as that example, somebody that had come to Christ seemingly on Paul’s first missionary journey when he came to the town of Lystra.

And then on his second journey he had picked Timothy up and taken him with him. And then later he had sent him to Ephesus to lead the church there. And he wrote two letters to him while he was there. And this is one of those letters.

And as the commission that Jesus gave to His church was to go and make disciples of all nations, we need to understand clearly what a disciple is.

And therefore, looking at Timothy we get just some idea of what it means to be a true disciple. I have called this short series “The Growth of a Disciple”. And I will read 2 Timothy 2:1-10,

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

“No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his commanding officer.

“Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules.

“The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.

“Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained.

“Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.”

Let me just briefly remind you of a couple of things I pointed out about Timothy last time. Timothy is not the bold, strong, confident kind of person that we sometimes naively assume people in the kind of leadership role that Timothy has been given are.

In fact, Paul has to write to him and tell him that he should not be timid. He tends to be sick. Paul talks about his frequent illnesses. So physically he did not have good resistance and stamina it seems. He is told not to slack; he is to stir up the gift that is in him. He probably has a tendency to slack a little.

He is sometimes ashamed of the Gospel. And Paul says, “Don’t be ashamed to testify about our Lord.” It took courage for him to talk to other people about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And generally, through these letters you get the idea that Timothy needs to toughen up a little bit and be willing to suffer, as Paul tells him he is suffering – “join with me in our suffering.”

So here is a man who is a little reserved, a little retiring, tends to be weak, has a tendency to hold himself back and not push himself forward. And Paul writes and says, “You need to get hold of yourself, Timothy, because if you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ you need to get hold of yourself.”

And he gives three pictures of what a disciple needs to be like in these verses.

He is to be like a soldier. We talked a bit about that last time.

“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Jesus Christ”, he says in 2 Timothy 2:3.

And notice Paul says, “Endure hardship with us”; that is, Paul is experiencing this himself. Later he says, “Join with me in suffering for the Gospel.” Later he says,

“This is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal.”

We talked about that. “Timothy, you have got to realize you are in a warfare which is not just an internal spiritual warfare; it has external play-out in your life as well. You need to toughen up like a soldier.”

And then he uses two more images, which I want to talk about this morning. He says in 2 Timothy 2:5,

“Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules.”

“Timothy, you need to be like an athlete.” Now if being like a soldier sounds a little intense to a lot of us, myself included, being like an athlete sounds pretty intense as well. An athlete doesn’t just kick a ball around for a bit of fun. An athlete is disciplined and focused on the task in hand.

The Olympic games were held, of course, last time in Beijing in China. Next time they will be held in London in 2012. And the British team – Team GB they called themselves – had the most successful games in Beijing they have ever had. And so, the kind of enthusiasm in Britain for the Olympics in 2012 was very high in the wake of the Beijing Games.

And Hilary and I were at London Airport when Team GB flew back in a specially chartered jumbo jet. And TV were there to welcome them back of course. And there were crowds to welcome them back.

And we watched this in the lounge at London Airport. It was happening just over – we could see the plane where it landed and where it had taxied in. But we also saw the program on TV there. And they were interviewing some of the crowd who were very enthusiastic. And one of the guys in the crowd said, he said, “You know, this is so exciting! I am going to check out some sports and see if there is one that I could do in 2012.”

Well, that’s a bit of wishful thinking. This guy is about 30 anyway. “Man, I think I can get myself toned up for the 2012 Olympics.” No way! These athletes have spent years and years of training and the development of their skill to be a good athlete.

And I imagine, you know, Paul, who is very aware of Roman soldiers because he has been their “guest” many times and he is writing this from a prison and he writes elsewhere to the Ephesians and describes what a Roman soldier was dressed in, probably sitting in his cell writing down what he was looking at.

But here I think his mind moves to the Greek games that have become the Olympic games in the last century, but they began back in Greece back in the time of the Greek Empire. And Paul moves from the Roman soldier probably to the Greek athlete.

And he says a few things about the athlete. He says, “Timothy, you need to understand this if you are going to be a true disciple and an effective disciple of Jesus Christ.”

Here are the things he says about the athlete. He says,

“If anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules.”

Two things I am going to point out to you about the athlete: he competes according to the rules. Now this is not Paul encouraging legalism, living by laws, living by rules, because elsewhere he has dealt with that, in the letter to the Galatians for instance.

But from the context, what he is saying is this: “Timothy, if you are going to be an athlete, you must live by the rules. If you are going to be a disciple, you must live the Christian life by the Word of God.” That’s what he is meaning here by living by the rules.

We know that because in 2 Timothy 2:2,

“The things you heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

“The things you have heard from me, the apostolic doctrine of which you have been a recipient, don’t try to modify it, don’t try to adjust it. What you have heard from me, with the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, you pass on to others and you make sure they pass on the same doctrine to others as well.”

You see we cannot live the Christian life any old how. We can only live the Christian life according to the Word of God. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy. 1 Timothy he writes about the church and how the church needs to conduct itself. That is clearly his message in 1 Timothy. If you want to know how the church should function, read 1 Timothy, read Titus as well, but 1 Timothy is about that.

2 Timothy is not about the church; it’s about Timothy himself, about how he needs to stir up his gift, not be timid, get on with the job, etc.

But in both there is a recurring theme and the recurring theme is this: “Timothy, both in the operation of the church and in the operation of your own personal life and ministry, you must live according to the Word of God.

Now in the first service this morning, I read a number of Scriptures from 1 Timothy and also from 2 Timothy which talk about sound doctrine, the importance of the clarity of teaching and of preaching and the public reading of Scripture, to be careful of deceiving spirits and doctrines taught by demons.

And I read those this morning. My wife said to me, “That section that you read all those verses; that was so tedious; people were starting to doze.” So, I am not going to read them to you. Be glad you come to the second service, huh?

In 2 Timothy (and I am going to end up saying most of them, but I’ll try and say them less tediously!),

“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you,” he tells him. (2 Timothy 1:14)

He is talking there about doctrine.

“The things you have heard me say, pass them on.”

“All Scripture is God-breathed” he says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “and is profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking, training in righteousness, etc.”

“Preach the Word;” (he talked about in 2 Timothy 4:2) “be prepared in season and out of season.”

But there are more verses than just those. I recommend you go and read them sometime on your own because this is a recurring theme where Paul has to say to Timothy, “Timothy, you have got to live and minister” (because he was ministering there in Ephesus) “according to the Word of God.”

And like an athlete, you live according to the rules. You cannot make up your own version of Christendom.

Now we have the reality of denominations. We have different emphases and different peculiarities; that’s okay; we live with that.

But you can’t make up your own Christian life and say, “Well this is the kind of Christian I want to be. I am happy to embrace Jesus” (I mean this is quite common these days.) “I am happy to embrace Jesus; I think Jesus is great. I need Him as my Saviour, but I am not going to take that part seriously. I want to live this way in that area of my life because, you know, it’s easiest and it’s what I like and it’s what everybody else is doing anyway.”

An athlete cannot compete that way. Do you remember the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea? Most Canadians will not forget the 1988 Olympics, especially the 100 Metres final, won by Ben Johnson. For three days Ben Johnson was the hero. The Toronto Star produced a new word in its headline, “Benfastic” – Ben from Scarborough, Ontario, the fastest man in the world – for three days.

And then they discovered he had taken drugs. The title was rescinded, given to Carl Lewis, who had come second. And Ben Johnson discovered a very painful lesson: if you do not compete according to the rules, you are wasting your time.

And Timothy, you need to be like an athlete, and the emphasis, as I will point out in a moment, is not about winning; it’s about competing, in what Paul says here. You must compete according to the rules. Every sport has its rules and the work of God must always submit to the Word of God.

So, I am grateful that Gerry announced this morning the Bible Reading Program. We are announcing it now to encourage you January the 1st, if you are not in the regular habit of reading the Scriptures, to pick it up and begin to read it through. It’s a program that breaks it up into 365 sections. They are quite chunky. It’s a big book and you may want to break that down and take two years or even three years, but read it - read it, and understand it and know it.

That’s the first aspect of an athlete – he must play and compete according to the rules. The second, which I am reading into this a little bit, though it is elsewhere in the New Testament, is that an athlete must work in partnership. We do not run alone; it is not simply a solo exercise.

Team sports of course are not, but even running an individual race, you are part of a team with trainers and physios and coaches and the like.

And in Hebrews 12:1, Paul talks there – sorry, not Paul - whoever wrote Hebrews 12 (that was not a Freudian slip because I don’t think Paul wrote it), but Hebrews 12:1, it says this:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Now what he is saying there is that this running of the race with perseverance is therefore since, because there are lots of folks in the same team, we are surrounded by a crowd of witnesses.

And if you read that in its context, Hebrews 11, the previous chapter, is about a whole list of people who have run the race, by faith. There is a list of people who lived by faith; they have been running the race. Hey, listen, you are not alone in this; we are part of a team, is the thrust of the writer to the Hebrews when he talks about this analogy of running a race.

You know Paul at the end of his letter – 2 Timothy – it’s his last letter – he is expecting to die fairly soon. He is an old man when he writes this. And he just says to Timothy, “You know, Timothy, I have got some folks with me and I could not function without these folks, I could not live without them.” He lists a whole string of people – a man called Crescens, then Titus, then Luke, then Mark, then Tychicus, Priscilla, Aquila, Onesiphorus, Erastus, Trophimus, Eubulus, Pudens, Linus and Claudia. These were all on his team. Now he said there are two of them who sadly have turned away – “Demas, who fell in love with this present world and a man called Alexander the metalworker who has done me some harm.”

But these are people upon whom Paul, in running his race, is interdependent with them, and of course interdependent with God; we are not running the race alone. We need people around us. That’s why we need to be part of the Christian community.

Some of you watching on television, maybe it’s been very easy to just sit at home and watch, but you cannot run the race well alone. You need to be surrounded by those who can encourage you and you, in encouraging them, are enriched by them. We need to be part of a community of believing Christians.

Having mentioned the Olympics let me take you there again. Do you remember Derek Redmond in the 400 metres in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona? Just watch this: that of course was his father who broke through the barriers, broke through the officials, broke the rules, kept others away when they tried to get involved, to help him over the line.

And in the race, you have a Father, I have a Father, who said, “I will never leave you – never – nor forsake you – never.”

And he crossed the line – Derek Redmond crossed the line not to win but to finish the race. Let’s forget about being competitive; let’s just concern ourselves with finishing the race. The reality of life is that you might pull a hamstring, you might break your Achilles tendon, whatever that may mean in other areas of life, our dreams get shattered, but we are not alone.

“And Timothy, as an athlete, you not only play according to the rules, but you work in partnership, in dependence on others, and ultimately of course, as I’ll say in just a moment, in dependence upon your Father.”

And then he moves on to the next image, which is equally important, where he says in 2 Timothy 2:6,

“The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.”

Now he moves the metaphor from the soldier and the athlete to being like a farmer. And there are two issues here for the farmer.

First of all, farming is about perseverance. He talks about the hardworking farmer. I don’t know how much Paul knew personally about farming, but he uses several farming metaphors.

Back in Galatians 6:7-8 he says that,

“A man reaps what he sows.”

That of course is a basic principle in arable farming. If you want a harvest, you had better put the right seed in the ground.

“A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”

Let me pause there. There is an important bit to follow, but let me pause there. He says you can sow seeds that are all about your own sinful nature. Normally seeds are designed for instant gratification, that’s normally what the sinful nature is about – “I want it now; I want to get out of this now.”

Why do people take drugs? To escape. “I want to feel better.” Why do people engage in illicit sex? “Because I want immediate gratification.” You sow to the flesh; you will reap a harvest.

I you sow to the Spirit – that is, to the things of God – if you sow to the Spirit you will reap a harvest, he says, but the next part of that statement in Galatians 6:9 is he says,

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Don’t become weary because you are going to reap a harvest. You see, farmers persevere; they have to. They spend a lot of time waiting – not doing nothing, but waiting. They sow, they fertilize the ground, they water the ground unless the weather does it naturally for them. But when I worked in Africa we had to irrigate and pump water up from lakes and dams that we had built in order for the seed to be nurtured and grow.

And you wait and you wait. And as Paul says, don’t become weary in doing good. You will reap a harvest if you don’t give up.

We have to be utterly realistic that much of the Christian life is not glamorous at all. It’s the hard work of living life. We live it in dependence upon God but you get up in the morning, you give your life to God, you go out to work. Maybe your work is very fulfilling, maybe your work energizes you; that’s a wonderful position to be in; it’s one we would like to be in. But for some of you, your work drains you, it’s hard going, it’s not deeply satisfying, there are disappointments in it.

Or you get up in the morning and you care for your family, you put so much thought and worry and preparation into your family and then you ask the question, “Am I doing it right? Are my kids really turning out the way they ought to turn out and is it my fault?” And you are frustrated and disappointed with yourself. All parents experience that in some way at some point in their lives

Whatever else is part of life, there are difficulties along the way. The stock markets have crashed and some of you have crashed with it, and you say, “Man, what am I doing? How am I going to survive?”

We’re not exempt from those things. But in the midst of those times, we sow to the Spirit – that is, we submit it all to God and we trust Him. And don’t become weary in doing good, keep on doing the things that are right and he says you will reap a harvest if you don’t give up. You will reap a harvest.

Eugene Peterson has written a book, which I haven’t read but I love the title. The title is almost as long as some books, but it’s a good title: “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” The Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction. We know what God’s end purpose is for us because He has told us that His end purpose is that we are conformed into the image of His Son.

That will not be true in its fullness until we arrive in heaven. It’s going to be true because He has predestined us to that end, that we will ultimately share the likeness of His Son.

But in this life, we are being changed from one degree of glory to another. It’s little by little by little by little. And you and I are the worst judges of that growth. We don’t see it in ourselves. It’s so incremental sometimes and we are aware of the battles that are still going on that we don’t see it.

When I was driving home the other day from here, the temperature here dropped from about –2 to –6 back where I live up in the frozen north. And I just happened to glance across at the thermometer in my car when it switched from –3 to –4. I thought, “Isn’t that interesting; I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t feel it (oh, it’s gotten a little chilly in here). Of course I had my heater on in the car, but even if I was outside I wouldn’t have said, “Oh, it’s just dropped down to –4. Boy, that was a big jump.”

And in the Christian life we are being transformed because the Lord Jesus is Himself committed to that end in your life. And the measure to which you are living in submission to Him is the measure to which He is bringing that out and about. But it’s so little by little sometimes we don’t see it. We need not to become weary in doing good says Paul. You will reap a harvest if you don’t give up.

A farmer engages in perseverance. “I know there is coming a harvest,” he says when he plants his seed. And very similar to that, farming is also about patience. It says that the farmer, the hardworking farmer, should be the first to receive a share of the crops. And those crops take a while to come. He plows the field, he prepares the soil; then he plants the seed.

And then you know what he does? He leaves the field, goes home and forgets about it. If you come back the next day there is nothing to show for it. Come back the next week, there will be very little show for it. Come back the next month and there may be some green shoots a few inches out of the ground, which are totally worthless. If you were to cut these off and try and sell them, nobody wants them; these are worthless at this point. But come back in six months and then he has his harvest.

And a hardworking farmer is patient waiting for the crops. And you know the work of discipleship involves patient waiting, trusting.

Jesus told a story similar to this (this is an aside but it’s important to this point as well) about a farmer who went out to sow his seed and in those days it was just a bag of seeds; you would sprinkle it around. Some of that seed landed on the path that ran alongside the field. And when it landed on the path, it just sat on the path. The birds of the air came and they ate it up. When Jesus interpreted that parable, He said the seed is the Word of God and the devil comes and snatches it if it lands on a hard heart, doesn’t penetrate.

But some seed then He says fell on rocky soil. Now lots of rocks around but there was enough soil for it to germinate, but there was nowhere for the roots to go and so after a while it couldn’t access the moisture and although it looked and held promise at first, it withered up and it died. The seed that falls on hearts that are superficial, and it looks at first as though there may be some response but it doesn’t put down its roots.

And then there is seed that fell amongst thorns and again it began to grow but so were all the weeds and thorns around it and they strangled it, so it did not produce its crop.

And then there is some that fell on good soil and it yielded a crop and Jesus said in Luke 8, when He said that parable, “The seed is the Word of God.”

And so, when the seed lands, that seed will do all it can to germinate and grow. The life is not in the soil, the life is not in the sower; certainly, the life is in the seed. The seed is itself the container of the life. And when it finds the right environment, it grows.

You know sometimes you might walk out of here on a Sunday morning and say, “Wow, I don’t know what the benefit of that was.” And I have to be honest, I go home and think that many times, and I am on this end. “Did anything really happen?”

But if the seed is good, it’ll find the soil that is good. And when it finds the soil that is good, don’t expect to see what it is doing on Monday morning. But long after the truth itself maybe has been consciously forgotten as to where it came from, that sub-conscious implanting of it in the soil begins to produce its fruit.

That’s the great thing about planting the Word of God into people’s hearts; you are planting something that is alive. And when it finds the right soil – and of course the metaphor there, the soil is the hearts of men and women - the soil can change, the hearts can change, their hardened heart can become receptive again.

I think I have mentioned this before that in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which I have had the opportunity of visiting twice. It’s in my view the best museum in the world. And one of the prize exhibits of the Egyptian Museum are some of the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamen who was a pharaoh who died three and a half thousand years ago and buried. He was only 18.

He had only been pharaoh a short while and he died of some illness and he was buried, as the kings of Egypt were, very elaborately with a lot accompanying him including horses and chariots and even soldiers, to accompany him on his journey.

And they also sent him with food, barrels of grain. And every grain had been cleaned and polished and put in these barrels and the barrels were sealed.  And when in the 1920’s an archaeologist discovered his tomb, most of the Egyptian king tombs had been raided centuries ago. But they found this tomb and the contents are on display. And they discovered when they opened the tomb and began to go through all the content of it that he hadn’t eaten any of the food they had sent with him for his journey; it was still in the barrels.

And if you go to the Cairo Museum there is a section in the Tutankhamen exhibition where they have soil with the right moisture and the right amount of light and heat. And every year, I guess it is – well, not every year, but once in a while they plant a few of these seeds (there are thousands of them) and they germinate.

Actually, when I was there last time they didn’t have it on display and I asked the guy, “Where is this?” And he said, “Well, we don’t do it all the time. We don’t want to run out of seeds.” And they have to find seeds that have life because some of them have died but some are alive.

And I read in the newspaper recently of a tomato – old tomato – found in China over two thousand years old and they planted one or two of the seeds of that tomato and they came to life and produced a tomato plant.

You see the life is in the seed.

“And Timothy, you are in Ephesus. You are in an environment which has been hostile to the Gospel.” If you are not sure, read what happened to Paul in Ephesus, where his preaching challenged the businesses built around the goddess Diana or Artemis. There was a big riot and Paul was kicked out of the area.

“Timothy, you are right in an area where you may think there is lots of hostility, but Timothy, like a farmer, be patient, be patient.” Just make sure, which is partly why in these two letters to Timothy, it’s the Word, it’s the Word, it’s doctrine, it’s truth, it’s Scripture.

He keeps coming back, “Preach the Word, teach the Word, and if the seed is good – that’s your job Timothy – make sure it’s good seed, make sure it’s seed you have not messed up with artificial stuff. It’ll find good soil.” And a farmer waits for the harvest.

“And so, Timothy, be like a soldier, be like an athlete, be like a farmer.” And then as I pointed out last time, he then says in 2 Timothy 2:8,

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.”

And you say, “Paul, why do you suddenly change the subject?” He hasn’t changed the subject. “Timothy there are two things you need to understand. You need to understand the internal presence of Christ in your life and the external disciplines of being a worker together with Him. You don’t become passive and neutral; you become active in disciplined living.”

And so, he says, “I’m telling you, timid Timothy, who has all these weaknesses and frailties about him, be like a soldier, an athlete and a farmer, but remember Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Timothy, you can’t do this alone.”

That’s why he said back in 2 Timothy 2:1,

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

Not, “Be strong, stick your chest out, flex your muscles Timothy; be strong.”

No, he says, “I know you, Timothy. I know you are timid. I know you get sick often. I know you are sometimes a bit ashamed of testifying to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know you are the kind of person people might pass on the street and not notice you were there. Don’t be strong in yourself Timothy. You know you haven’t got it. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

And then he tells him what to be – a soldier, like a soldier, like an athlete, like a farmer. Remember Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. It’s a risen Christ that you are dealing with.

And so are you and so am I. We are not in this alone. We have a Father who will never leave us, never forsake us. We have the risen Christ in whose grace we may be strong as He imparts His strength to us.

“But Timothy, you need to endure hardship like a good soldier, you need to be like an athlete and compete according to the rules, you need to be like a hardworking farmer who waits for his crops.”

And this is about being a disciple. Let me ask you this morning as I close, how is your discipleship going? It is very easy to sit back and say, “Well Lord, I am just going to drift through life and you know, hope it’s going to work out because You are going to do it and I am just going to do nothing.”

I hope you have never understood that from me. I talk about Christ as our strength and life; that’s crucial; that’s key. But Jesus Christ needs to live in a life that is obedient. His internal presence leads to our dependence on Him; the external disciplines lead to our obedience to Him. And these two must go together.

And this is what it means to be a disciple that not only has that deep satisfaction in their hearts that yes, I am secure in Christ, but is fruitful in producing benefit to other people.

Let’s pray together.