Vision 2: Train disciples who make disciples (2 Timothy 3)

We are currently in a series on our church's vision. As a reminder, our vision has three points. We exist to:

1. Embody the gospel for the people of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send empowered Christians to serve the gospel in France and elsewhere.

Last week we talked about what it looks like to embody the gospel for the people of our city; this week we're talking about the next point: training disciples who make disciples. This is the next logical step: once we encounter Christ, we must learn to live like him.

To talk about this, we're going to look at a very well-known passage, chapter 3 of Paul's second letter to Timothy.

In case you don't know what's going on in this letter: the apostle Paul had a protégé, a young man named Timothy. Timothy traveled with Paul, listened to Paul preach, and observed how Paul lived.

One day, when Timothy was mature enough, Paul left him in Ephesus to be pastor of the church there. Some time later, Paul was imprisoned by the Romans.

He wrote this letter while he was in prison, shortly before his death. He wrote it as a final exhortation to Timothy, a farewell to his son in the faith. The letter is an exhortation to Timothy to keep what is truly important at the center of his life.

Paul does this first by expressing his gratitude for Timothy's faith and exhorting him to persevere in the gospel; then he puts his exhortation in the proper context by talking about the false teachings that have arisen in Timothy's church and elsewhere. These false teachings do not come from Timothy; they come from other Christians.

And that is where the danger lies.

The danger of false disciples (vv. 1-9)

This is where we will begin, in chapter 3, verse 1.

Know that in the last days there will be difficult times, 2for people will be selfish, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, rebellious against their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3insensitive, implacable, slanderers, violent, cruel, enemies of good, 4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 5They will have a form of godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

This is what happens when true discipleship is not lived out. This is the counterexample that Paul gives to Timothy.

In verses 1-5, Paul lists certain character traits that seem fairly obvious if you have read Paul's other letters. But here, he seems to be casting a wider net than usual. He speaks of people who are selfish, greedy, arrogant, deceitful, brutal, "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." It's almost a caricature of what we would consider a "bad" person.

But one thing sets these people apart, something we wouldn't necessarily expect here, and it's the most important thing. We see it in verse 5: They will have the appearance of godliness but deny its power.

These people have the appearance of godliness. Godliness is both a correct belief about God and the committed practice of the life He commands us to live. Simply put, godliness is knowing God and doing what He tells us to do.

These people appear to know God and do what He says. This means that despite the harsh things Paul has just said about them, if we saw these people in church, we would find them impressive. They are people who call themselves Christians and even seem to be model Christians. They have the appearance of godliness.

But, Paul says, they are not driven by piety; they are driven by the selfish desires that have always motivated them.

That is why these people are particularly dangerous; that is why Paul says at the end of verse 5, "Keep away from such people."

These false disciples are dangerous because, since they appear so pious, they are trusted. But since they are driven by their desires rather than by God, they are not worthy of that trust.

Paul says in verse 6 that these men "slip into homes and take in gullible women burdened with sins—that is, these women had sinned in the past, could not escape the guilt they felt because of these sins, and as a result continued to be led astray by all kinds of desires; they are always learning but can never come to the knowledge of the truth."

This can also happen to men, of course, but given the power dynamics between men and women at the time, this type of woman would have been easy prey. (A good example of the type of woman Paul is talking about is the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. She was in exactly the same situation, except that it was Jesus she met at the well, and thank God for that.)

What do these men do? They ensnare these women—and again, it could be men too—in their nets. They convince them of a false gospel, which has all the appearance of godliness but none of the truth.

Paul says in verse 8 that these men are like Jannes and Jambres. Who are they? These names do not appear in the Old Testament, but Jannes and Jambres are the names given in Jewish tradition to the magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7. Today we use the name Napoleon to refer to a haughty character; Jannes and Jambres were a shortcut used by the Jews to represent opposition to the truth of God.

These men have minds twisted by sin; they oppose the truth in their actions, while speaking the truth aloud. Their folly will one day be obvious to all, but in the meantime, they are dangerous to themselves and others.

Paul's purpose in telling Timothy all this is not to frighten him. He is trying to do two things: first, he wants Timothy to watch over his church: to be on his guard, to keep his eyes open for signs of this type of person, because they are dangerous to themselves and especially to the church.

The life of the true disciple (vv. 10-13)

But the second thing Paul wants to do is to encourage Timothy in the true life of a disciple. When true godliness is at work in someone, the "power" of godliness will be seen in the way others are drawn to Christ through that person's life. And that is what we see in the following verses. V. 10:

10You, on the other hand, have closely followed my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance, 11as well as the persecutions and sufferings I endured in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! And the Lord delivered me from them all.

When we read verse 10, it seems that Paul is feeling quite strong. He reminds Timothy of what Timothy saw when he followed him. He speaks of my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance...

One might say that Paul is getting a little big-headed here, but he is not praising himself. He is doing two things. First, he is showing Timothy what constitutes the true strength of our faith (in contrast to what he says in verse 5, speaking of those who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power). Some will come boasting of the extraordinary—sometimes even supernatural—deeds they have done for the Lord. But it is not these visibly impressive things that make up the strength of godliness; it is very simple things: patience, love, perseverance in trials, a commitment to the truth, and conduct in accordance with that truth.

And then, by saying everything that Timothy was able to see in him, Paul draws Timothy's attention, not to Paul himself, but to the way Timothy has followed in his footsteps. In verse 10, he is saying, "Timothy, you have followed me closely, and you have learned well. You have grown well. You are conducting yourself well. You have a good purpose in life. You have grown in patience, in love, in perseverance." Paul is commending Timothy here, not himself.

Timothy followed in Paul's footsteps, and what's more, he saw how Paul suffered during his ministry. He reminds Timothy that true discipleship is costly and often humiliating. Verse 12:

12Moreover, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.

For the disciple of Christ, suffering and persecution are part of the deal. As Jesus said, "A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20).

Why does Paul talk about persecution here? Because it is another clear indicator of true godliness, of the true life of a disciple.

I have used this illustration before, but I will say it again now.

This summer we were on vacation in the mountains, and we went swimming in rivers and lakes several times. Most of the time, it was Zadie (our seven-year-old daughter) who wanted to swim. The water was freezing, but she was determined to show what she could do.

And so she went in: she gritted her teeth and said, "Wow, it's cold!" but she went in anyway. She got in the water and had a lot of fun.

I wanted to go with her because I love to swim, I love the water. But I'm also sensitive to the cold, and the water was really cold. I wanted to go in the water with her... but I didn't want to that much. I went in up to my knees, and then I said, "Actually, I'm fine. I'm good here."

That's the dynamic we see when we are exposed to suffering or persecution for our faith—we see what our faith is made of. Paul and Timothy are fully committed to this life. They are determined to follow Christ. So they accept persecution, they accept suffering for Christ, they are willing to brave the cold waters, because they know what awaits them at the end, and it is infinitely better than what they would have if they did not suffer.

The people Paul described in verses 1-9 would never go that far. They would never accept persecution for what they claim to believe, because they don't fully believe it. J. Oswald Chambers says: "We go through a spiritual crisis when we are forced to go beyond the convictions we had previously adopted." When the Christian life becomes costly, a false disciple will drop the mask and leave. As Paul says in verse 9, their folly will be obvious to all.

The question is, how did Timothy, this young Greek man who came to faith in Christ, reach a maturity that enabled him not only to demonstrate faith, patience, and love, but to persevere in this character even in the midst of suffering?

The answer is that he followed Paul. He lived with Paul. He learned from Paul.

He followed him in holy character and in the difficulties that Paul endured.

The point here is that Timothy did not do this on his own. He learned to live the Christian life faithfully, in good times and bad, by watching Paul and following him.

Of course, not all Christians have this same opportunity. Here is a classic example: if a man were shipwrecked on a desert island with nothing but his Bible, could he still grow in his faith?

Of course he could—the apostle John did. In such extreme cases, God is faithful to help us grow in faith. But we must recognize that this is the exception rather than the norm.

Jesus' disciples learned to follow him...by following him. And they themselves took on disciples who followed them. Paul trained Timothy. Priscilla and Aquila trained Apollos.

The norm for Christian life is that we learn to live faithfully for Christ by observing and imitating others who live faithfully for Christ.

So there are two things we need to note. The first is fairly obvious, but it needs to be said anyway:

First, if we have a local church, we cannot afford to live apart from it.

Some people are like me—they struggle in social situations. Others have trouble opening up. Others have been hurt by the church in the past. There are many excuses one can find for staying away from a local church, and many people will do so; they will say, “I love Jesus, I love the Bible, but I don’t need the church, because God will guide me.”

That's not how it works. It's a dangerous thing to presume on God's grace and choose to remain isolated from the church He has commanded us to be attached to because we don't want to open up there. We are clearly told, “Do not neglect meeting together” in the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:25).

If you have access to a local church—as we all do here—then the standard the Bible gives you for Christian living is to grow in Christ by living out your faith with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we have access to the local church, we cannot live apart from it. That is the first thing.

The second thing to note is that the stakes are enormous. In verses 1-9, Paul gives this long description of people who call themselves Christians but who are actually serving their appetite for pleasure. He says that these false believers are disqualified when it comes to faith.

And then he says to Timothy, "But that's not the case with you. You haven't lived like them. You haven't done what they've done."

What did Timothy do instead? He followed Paul. He learned from Paul. He grew in the Christian life by imitating Paul.

We may tend to think of an active discipleship as incidental to the Christian life: something we can do if we have time, but which is not strictly necessary.

It is true that we are not saved by our life of discipleship; we are saved by the grace of Christ alone. But we must see that the Christian life, after we are saved, is a life of discipleship. Always. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only those who believe obey; and only those who obey believe.”

This life is not optional; it is what life with Christ looks like. We must invest ourselves in this life.

So we see the first means of discipleship in verses 10-13: we live as disciples by living our lives together, observing and imitating one another as we live faithfully. The first means of our discipleship is our life together.

The fuel of the disciple's life (vv. 14-17)

The second means of discipleship that Paul gives to Timothy is the most basic and the most important: it is the Word of God. V. 14:

14As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, knowing from whom you learned it. 15From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Verses 16-17 are the clearest description in the entire Bible of what happened when the Bible was written. All Scripture, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are "inspired" by God—but that translation is too weak; literally, it says that all Scripture is "breathed out" or "breathed" by God. The words we have in the Bible are exactly what God wanted, while maintaining the style and personality of the person holding the pen.

I know it's easy to say that, and some of you will have questions about the Bible itself: Are there books missing from the Bible? Are there books here that shouldn't be here? How can we know that these particular books are truly inspired by God?

These are big questions, and good questions, and we have talked about them; a long time ago, in 2015, we did a workshop on these questions; and the first sessions of the second year of Sunday School were dedicated to this topic. You can find all of this on our website.

For now, I will simply say what we affirm as a church: the books contained in the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the primary means by which God speaks to us today. We have very good reasons to believe this.

And since all Scripture is inspired by God, it is useful to us—it is sufficient: it is the fuel for our growth, so that the man of God may be trained and equipped for every good work.

There is no need for new "revelations"; there is no need for new words from God. He has said everything we need to hear in the Bible. But it is not as if God inspired the words of Scripture and then sat back and left us to figure it out for ourselves. The Scripture that God "breathed" into the biblical authors is useful to us because God still breathes.

Every time we sit down with an open Bible, asking God to help us understand it, integrate it, and live it out, the same Holy Spirit who inspired those words animates them in us and nourishes us.

It is an incredible truth that we get used to far too easily: every time we approach God's Word in faith, God himself speaks to us through that Word.

That is why the Bible is the center of everything we do as a church. The Bible is the Word of God, given so that we may hear God's voice, learn His will, and learn to love what He loves.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

But our emphasis on verses 16-17, while very good, often misses something; when we talk about these verses, we often forget the context.

The context of verses 16-17 is, of course, verses 14-15, where Paul tells Timothy to hold fast to what he has learned and to remember from whom he learned it.

Timothy was not sitting alone in a library studying the Bible. He was taught the Bible. In chapter 1, Paul thanks God for the way Timothy began in the faith: by listening to and observing his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. These two women exposed him to the Scriptures, and Paul later took up the baton.

That is how Timothy learned to know Scripture and to live Scripture. He did not do it alone. It was through faithful men and women who walked alongside him and helped him understand Scripture, who modeled Scripture for him, that he grew in his knowledge and love of God.

Application

It is not difficult to see how God is calling us to respond to what Paul says in this passage.

First, watch yourselves.

Paul wasn't afraid for Timothy, but God knew what He was doing when He inspired Paul to write these words. In verses 1-9, He gives us a clear warning against the dangers of not following Christ, of being "friends of pleasure rather than of God"—of what we can become when we pretend to be disciples of Christ but follow our own goals. And Paul also gives us indicators to look for in others, for he tells Timothy, "Avoid" such people. Obviously he is speaking to a pastor, and we want to be very careful before making such a decision (it has only happened a few times since we started this church), but we cannot miss his greater message: calling oneself a Christian while neglecting the true life of a disciple of Christ is dangerous for the church, and we must watch over ourselves to avoid such dangers.

Second: follow Christ together.

We tend to want to establish a whole program for what we call "discipleship," and programs can be useful. But the example of Paul and Timothy is so valuable because it shows us that a program will never do as much good as simply following Christ together. Timothy went where Paul went, he listened to what Paul said, he observed how Paul lived...and he did the same. Like a child learning to walk or talk. It's not easy, but it's not complicated either.

We sit down, open our Bibles, pray, read together, and discuss. And then we spend a lot of time together, to see what it looks like to live out the Word.

There are people around each of you—I'm talking to you—there are people around you who know Christ better than you do, who follow Christ better than you do, and who are more mature in their faith than you are. Find someone like that and ask them to read the Bible with you. Observe how they live and imitate them.

Singles, spend time with married people. Couples, spend time with singles. Parents, disciple your children. Make sure the gospel is omnipresent in your home. Talk about the gospel, memorize it together, show your children what it looks like when talking about the gospel is natural.

Those of you who are (a little) older, seek out your younger brothers and sisters too, because we learn as much from them as they learn from us. Paul said to Timothy in his first letter, in 1 Timothy 4:12: Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Timothy was the young one, but he was also the example.

You all have areas of maturity and knowledge and experience that those around you do not have, and you can—and should—help each other grow. We learn to follow Christ by following Christ, together.

And finally: whether you are together or alone, listen to God speaking to you through his Word.

Paul writes his last letter to Timothy, knowing that he will soon die. Soon, Timothy will no longer have his mentor.

But ultimately, Timothy doesn't need Paul; he needs Christ. Paul was a tool in God's hand, to train Timothy in the Word. And the Word of God, the testimony of Christ, brought to life by the power of the Holy Spirit—that is what truly transforms.

Don't follow anyone to such an extent that that person overshadows Jesus Christ. Dig deep into God's Word, when you are together and when you are alone. Pray that God will speak to you through His Word. Listen to what He says in His Word.

And when you hear Him, obey Him.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

We have everything we need to grow, right now.