Vision: Train disciples (2 Timothy 3)

We’re currently in a series on the vision of our church—the way we feel God calls us to live in his plan for this world. Just as a reminder, these are the three points of our church vision. We exist to:

1. Embody the gospel for the residents of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send out Christians equipped to serve the gospel in France and beyond.

Last week we talked about what it looks like to embody the gospel for the people of our city; this week we’re moving on to our next point: training disciples who make disciples. It is the logical next step: once we meet Christ, we need to learn to live like him. It’s exactly what Jesus commands his disciples to do in Matthew 28: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.

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, he listened to Paul teach and he watched him live.

Eventually, when Timothy was mature enough, Paul left him in Ephesus to pastor the church there. And then, Paul was imprisoned by the Romans.

He writes this letter from prison, a short time before his death. He wrote it as a final exhortation to Timothy, a farewell to his son in the faith. And it really is a kind of final exhortation to Timothy to keep central what is truly central—to remain focused on what is truly important.

He does this by first expressing his gratitude for Timothy’s faith, and exhorting him to endure in the gospel; and then he puts his exhortation into context by talking about false teachings that have been showing up in Timothy’s church and elsewhere. These false teachings aren’t coming from Timothy; they’re coming from other Christians.

And that’s where the danger lies.

The Danger of False Discipleship (v. 1-9)

That’s where we’ll start in chapter 3, verse 1.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

So this is what happens when true discipleship is not pursued. This is the counterexample Paul gives to Timothy.

In v. 1-5, Paul lists a number of characteristics that seem fairly obvious if you’ve read Paul’s other letters. But here, he seems to cast his net wider than usual. He talks about people who are self-centered, greedy, arrogant, disrespectful, liars, brutal, “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” It’s almost a caricature of what most of us would consider an “evil” person.

But one thing sets them apart that we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see here, and it’s the most important. We see it in v. 5: having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

These people have the appearance of godliness. That is, despite all the awful things Paul just said about them, if you saw these people in church, you’d probably never notice anything strange about them. These are people who claim to be Christians, and who even seem to be exemplary Christians. They have the appearance of godliness.

There’s a reason why Paul says “Avoid such people” at the end of v. 5, and that is that these people are particularly dangerous. don’t think I’m overstating when I say this: someone who calls themself a Christian, but who does not live as a disciple of Christ, is far more dangerous than a sinful unbeliever. They’re dangerous because, since they seem so godly, people will trust them. But since they’re guided by their own selfish desires instead of God, these men aren’t trustworthy.

Paul says that they prey on the weak—that’s what he means when he talks about “creeping into households and capturing weak women”. He’s not saying they prey on all women, but given the power dynamics between men and women at the time, a particular type of woman would have been an easy target: women who were “burdened with sins—who had sinned in the past and couldn’t get out from under the guilt of it, and who, consequently, continued to be led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

This can happen to men too, of course, but given the power dynamics between men and women naturally the time, this type of woman would have been an easy target. (A good example of the kind of woman Paul’s describing here is the Samaritan woman at the well, in John 4. She was in exactly this type of situation in her life, except that she met Jesus at that well, and not the kind of man Paul describes here.)

What do these men do? They “capture” these weak women—they convince them of a false gospel, which has all the bells and whistles of piety, but no truth.

Paul says in v. 8 that these men are like Jannes and Jambres. Who were they? These names don’t appear in the Old Testament, but they are the names that early Jewish writings gave to the magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7. Just like people use Napoleon’s name as shorthand for a self-aggrandizing character, Jannes and Jambres were shorthand for the Jews to represent opposition to God’s truth. These men, Paul says, have had their minds twisted by sin. Eventually their folly will be plain to all, he says, but in the meantime, they do damage to themselves and to others.

Paul’s goal in telling all of this to Timothy isn’t to freak him out. He’s not trying to make Timothy paranoid and afraid of opening up. He’s trying to do things: first, he wants to put him on his guard, so he can have his eyes open for signs of this type of person, because they’re dangerous for themselves, but especially, they’re dangerous for the church.

The Life of True Discipleship (v. 10-13)

The second thing he wants to do is encourage Timothy in true discipleship. When true godliness is at work, its power will show itself in the way other people are pointed to Christ through the life of the godly Christian. And this is what we see in the following verses, when Paul talks about himself. V. 10:

10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

Now I know that the way Paul starts v. 10 sounds awfully self-aggrandizing. He reminds Timothy of what Timothy saw when he was following Paul. He talks about “my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness.”

My instinct is to go, “Wow, Paul, you sure have a high opinion of yourself. Maybe a little humility is in order.”

But Paul’s not praising himself. Paul draws Timothy’s attention, not to Paul himself, but to the way Timothy has followed in his footsteps. In v. 10, he’s saying, “Timothy, you have learned well. You conduct yourself well. You have a good aim in life. You have grown in patience. You have grown in love. You have grown in steadfastness.” Timothy saw all this in Paul, and he followed in his footsteps. Paul is commending Timothy here, not himself.

Now, Paul says that in addition to following in his footsteps in terms of godliness, Timothy has also seen how Paul suffered in the different cities where he ministered. Paul reminds him that true discipleship is costly, and often humiliating. V. 12:

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

For the disciple of Christ, persecution and hardship are part of the package. As Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15.20).

Why is he talking about persecution? Because it is another clear indicator of true godliness, of true discipleship. He’s contrasting the false disciples he described in v. 1-9 with his own experience, an experience that Timothy has witnessed and participated in.

When we were on vacation in the south of France, we went to a lake with another family. At the center of this lake, there was a platform you could climb onto and jump off of, into the water. Zadie was absolutely determined to jump off of the platform into the water. So she swam out there with the others, climbed up, and jumped off, like a champ.

I wanted to jump off too, because I like the water, I like swimming, and I like jumping off things.

The thing is, the water was really cold. Unpleasantly cold.  I wanted to go in and swim and jump off the platform, but I didn’t want it that bad. So I got in up to my knees, and then said, “You know, I’m good.” And I stayed out.

This is the dynamic we see when Christians are exposed to hardships or persecution for their faith. Paul and Timothy are all in. They’re determined to follow him. They’ll take the persecution for Christ, they’ll take the hardships for Christ, because they have Christ. They’ll brave the waters, because they know what’s waiting for them at the end, and it’s infinitely better than whatever they may suffer for it.

The people Paul described in v. 1-9 will never get that far. They will never accept persecution for what they say they believe, because they don’t fully believe it. They’re lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They’ve learned a lot, but they haven’t arrived at a knowledge of the truth. When the Christian life becomes costly to them, they will show their hand; they’ll bow out. And, as Paul says in v. 9, their folly will be plain to all.

The question is, how did Timothy, this young Greek man who grew to know Christ, come to the point where he would be able, not only to manifest faith, patience, love and steadfastness, but to remain firm in that character, even in the midst of the hardship he endured?

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

He followed him in godly character, and in the persecutions and sufferings Paul endured.

The important thing to see is that he didn’t do it on his own. Timothy learned how to faithfully live the Christian life, in good times, and bad, by watching Paul do it.

Of course, not all Christians have this same opportunity. And in those cases, God has consistently showed himself faithful to help us grow in the faith. But we have to see that this kind of discipleship model (the “desert island” model where a guy is marooned on a desert island with nothing but his Bible and still grows in his faith because God is good and gracious) is the exception rather than the rule in the Bible.

Jesus’s disciples learned to follow him…by following him. And they took on disciples of their own. Paul trained Timothy.

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

There are two things we have to see here. The first is pretty obvious, but it should be said anyway:

Firstly, if you have any access to the local church, you can’t live separated from it.

Some people are like me—they have a hard time in social situations. Some people have a hard time opening up. Some people have been wounded by the church in the past. There are lots of excuses we can find to remain isolated from a local church, and a lot of people will do that; they’ll say, “I love Jesus, I love the Bible, but I don’t really need the church, because God will speak to me and build me up himself.”

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 because you don’t want to open yourself up to it. So if you have access to a local church—like all of us here do—then the norm the Bible gives us for Christian life is for us to grow in Christ by living out our faith together, letting one another see what it looks like, and then imitating one another in faithfulness.

If we have access to a local church, we cannot live separated from it. That’s the first thing.

The second thing we need to see here is that the stakes are enormous. The life of discipleship that Paul models for us with Timothy is the means by which we avoid becoming the type of Christians he described in v. 1-9.

He gives this long description of these people who call themselves Christians, but who are actually serving their appetite for pleasure.

Paul makes a contrast here between what these so-called Christians did, and what Timothy did, saying these false believers are disqualified regarding the faith.

And then he tells Timothy, “But that’s not the case for you. You haven’t lived like they live. You haven’t done what they’ve done.”

What did Timothy do instead? He followed Paul. He learned from Paul. He grew to live faithfully by watching Paul.

We can tend to think of discipleship as an add-on to the Christian life: something we can do if we have time, but that’s not strictly necessary for our salvation. So really, it’s optional.

It’s true that we are not saved by living a life of discipleship; we’re saved by the grace of Christ alone. However, we have to see that the Christian life is a life of discipleship. That’s what Christianity is. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only he who believes is obedient. Only he who is obedient believes.”

This isn’t optional; this is what life with Christ looks like. So we must invest ourselves in this life.

So we see the first means of discipleship in v. 10-13: we live as disciples by living our lives in Christ together, observing one another, imitating one another when we live faithfully, finding younger Christians and letting them observe us, finding more mature Christians and watching how they live and learning from them. The first means of our discipleship is our life together.

But it’s not the last.

The Fuel for True Discipleship (v. 14-17)

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

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

V. 16-17 are the famous verses of this passage; these are the verses you see on t-shirts, this is the part we memorize.

For good reason. This is the clearest description in the entire Bible of what exactly happened when the Bible was written. All Scripture, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are “breathed out by God”. The words we have in the Bible are exactly the words God wanted written, all while maintaining the styles and the personalities and the particularities of the people holding the pen.

Now I know that some of you may have questions about the Bible itself: Do we have all the books of the Bible? Are there any in here that shouldn’t be in here? How do we know that these books in particular were really inspired by God, and not modified over time by someone with other agendas? Those are big questions, and good ones, and we’ve talked about them: way back in 2015, we did a workshop on exactly these questions, and I’ll put the link in Slack tonight if you’re interested in digging further.

For now, we’ll be content to affirm as a church that the books contained in the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the main means by which God speaks to us today.

And because all Scripture is breathed out by God, it is profitable for us—it is the motor of our growth, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The breathed-out Word of God is profitable to us because God is still breathing. Every time we sit in front of an open Bible, and we ask God for help to understand and integrate and live it, the same Holy Spirit who inspired these words animates them in us and feeds us.

It’s just incredible: every time we come to God’s Word in faith, God himself speaks to us through that Word.

This is why the Bible is the center of everything that we do as a church. The Bible is God’s Word, given to us in order that we might hear God’s voice, learn God’s will, and grow to love what God loves. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

However, our insistance on v. 16-17, while very good, is often missing something. It’s often missing its context.

The context of v. 16-17 is v. 14-15, in which Paul tells Timothy to remember what he has learned, and to remember from whom he learned it.

Timothy wasn’t sitting in a library all by himself, studying the Bible. He was taught the Bible. In chapter 1, Paul thanks God for how Timothy’s faith got its start: by listening to and observing his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Their work was picked up by Paul later on.

This is how Timothy came to know the Scriptures and live out the Scriptures. He didn’t do it alone. It was through faithful men and women, coming alongside him and helping him understand Scripture, and modeling Scripture for him, that he grew to know and love and live Scripture himself.

Application

It’s pretty easy to see how God calls us to respond to what he says through Paul here.

Firstly, keep a close eye on your life.

Paul wasn’t worried about Timothy, but God knew what he was doing when he inspired Paul to write this. In v. 1-9, he gives us a clear warning of the dangers of not following Christ, of being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. And he also gives us indicators to look out for in others, because he tells Timothy: “Avoid these people.” Of course we want to be very careful before making a decision like that (it’s only happened a couple of times in our ten years as a church), but we can’t miss Paul’s bigger point—that calling yourself a Christian and neglecting true discipleship causes ravages in the church, and we need to be on our guard against such ravages.

Secondly, follow Christ together.

The example of Paul and Timothy is so precious, because it shows us how much we can benefit from simply being together. Timothy went where Paul went, he listened to what he said, he watched how he lived, and he did the same. Just like a little kid learning to walk or talk; it’s not easy, but it is simple.

What’s not so simple is the question, Whom do I follow? If you look around, you may notice that there are quite a few young people here. There are more people over forty than there used to be (and thank the Lord for that, because we need you), but we are still in the minority. All of you young folks just can’t closely follow someone over forty, because there aren’t enough of us to go around.

So whom do you follow, if most of you are about the same age, and in the same stage of life?

The answer is simple: You still have models to follow. Even if everyone around you is the same age as you, in the same basic life situation as you, you still have models to follow.

Age isn’t everything. Spiritual maturity varies at all ages. I know it’s tempting to feel inadequate or illegitimate, to feel like you need to be trained in order to walk in discipleship with someone. There is definitely value in that kind of training, and we want to get something up and running in this area in the coming year.

But can you do it, with just your Bible and your presence together? Absolutely.

There are people around you who know Christ better than you, and follow Christ better than you, and are more mature in Christ than you are. Find those people, and stick to them. Read the Bible with them. Pray with them. Watch how they live.

Single people, hang out with married people. Married people, hang out with single people. Parents, disciple your kids. Make sure the gospel is present in your home. We read it earlier, in Deuteronomy 6—talk about it, memorize it, show your kids what it looks like when talking about the gospel is natural.

Older people (and I’m including myself in this group), seek out your younger brothers and sisters, because we learn from them just as much as they learn from us. Paul said this to Timothy in his first letter, in 1 Timothy 4.12: Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Timothy was the young one, and yet he was the model.

You all have things the people around you lack, and you build each other up. We learn to follow Christ by following Christ, together.

And finally: listen to God speak through his Word.

Paul is writing this last letter to Timothy, and he knows he’s going to die soon. In a short time, Timothy will be deprived of 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 God’s Word, the witness of Christ, come alive through the power of the Holy Spirit, is what truly transforms.

Don’t follow someone so much that Jesus becomes eclipsed. Dig deep into God’s Word, when you’re together and when you’re alone. Pray that God would speak to you through his Word. Listen to what he says in his Word. And when you hear it, obey.

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

We have everything we need to grow, right here.

Vision: Embody the Gospel (2 Corinthians 5.17-6.13)

Last week we began a series on the vision of our church. We started by looking at the big-picture view of what God is doing in this world—how his plan for this world is to save a people for himself, to save the creation itself, and to receive the glory for his grace.

We have to keep this huge picture in mind, of God’s glory, manifested in the grace he has shown us in Christ, because if we aren’t keeping our eyes fixed on this God, the vision of our church will be reduced to a list of things for us to do, rather than what we hope it is: the means God gives us to work together with him for his glory in Paris.

But once that goal is established, we do need to move from the why to the how. So here is the vision of our church: we’ll be taking one week for each point.

Eglise Connexion exists to:

1. Embody the gospel for the residents of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send out Christians equipped to serve the church of Christ in France and beyond.

Today we’ll be looking at the first point—our desire to embody the gospel for the residents of Paris. And we see a really good example of what this looks like in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

In order to understand what Paul’s getting at in this passage we need a bit of context.

The church in the city of Corinth was profoundly messed up. Paul planted this church with fellow workers Priscilla and Aquila; they spent eighteen months there, and eventually moved on to Ephesus. (We see this in Acts 18.) At some point after this, Paul received word that the church in Corinth had gone totally off the rails—false teaching, unhindered sin of all kinds… They were a mess.

So he wrote them a letter. We don’t have this letter, but he mentions it in 1 Corinthians 5—and apparently the Corinthian church completely misunderstood it, and their problems worsened. So he wrote another letter, which we have in our Bible as 1 Corinthians. In this letter, he corrects a good number of doctrinal errors and calls them out very bluntly on their sin.

And good news: a large number of people in the church were convinced and convicted of their sin. They repented, they accepted Paul’s gospel—they were getting back on the rails.

But some people in this church still resisted Paul, still refused to accept his leadership, still refused to repent. So Paul writes another letter, 2 Corinthians, both to encourage those who have repented and to defend his apostolic ministry before his opponents.

But he’s not just speaking on his own behalf; he’s speaking on behalf of everyone who has served the Corinthian church with him—people like Priscilla and Aquilas. It’s really important to see that he’s not giving a single isolated example of what he did, but he speaks of how “we”, those who have served the church in Corinth, have lived.

He’s describing a pattern of group behavior, not just one man’s example.

Ambassadors for the Gospel (5.17-6.2)

Leading up to this, Paul has been talking about the suffering he and his co-laborers have endured for the gospel, and especially why they are doing it. In chapter 4 he talks about the fact that because they know where they are going—because they know that their work is not merely temporary—they can be in the midst of the most brutal circumstances and still not lose their hope.

And on this note, he starts to speak about what motivates him and his fellow workers. Chapter 5, verse 17:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul tells us two things here that are essential. First, he tells us the gospel. Nearly the totality of the gospel is summed up in v. 21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a human being, fully God and fully man, and he is the only human being in history who “knew no sin.” All of us have sinned and are naturally separated from God; Jesus, although he shared in our human nature, never sinned. Though he was tempted like us, he never gave in to temptation like us. He was and is perfectly innocent, perfectly just, perfectly righteous.

And yet, God made him who knew no sin to be sin. That is, he took all of the rebellion of all of his people throughout all of human history, and placed that sin on Christ—so completely that it was as if Christ himself was the sin which made us guilty before God. And carrying that sin on his shoulders, Christ went to the cross, and was punished. God poured out every drop of his wrath against our sin, and he poured it on Christ.

That’s half the equation. The other half is in these words: so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Just as Christ took on our sin so completely that it was as if he had become our sin, he gives us his perfect life so completely that it is as if we have become his righteousness.

This is how, as Paul says in v. 18, God has reconciled us to himself.

God cannot be reconciled to sin. It’s oil and water: sin and holiness cannot cohabitate. So how can God reconcile himself to sinful people? By killing their sin in the person of Christ, and by giving them the sinless life that Christ lived.

Think about what this means; I’ll use myself as an example. I have placed my faith in Christ. I have repented of my sin. So God preactively killed my sin when he poured out his wrath on Christ. That is, two thousand years ago, God killed all of the sin I have committed over the last forty-three years, and all of the sin I will commit for the rest of my life. Two thousand years ago, God killed the sin I will commit tomorrow.

And in the same way, God preactively gave us Christ’s righteousness, in order that we might grow in righteousness. Two thousand years ago, Christ lived the perfect life that I will show to God when I die. I will stand before him, and he will examine me, and he will see the perfect life of Christ that was given to me, and he’ll declare me innocent and holy—innocent because my sin is covered, and holy because Christ gave me his righteousness.

You will undergo a lot of pain, a lot of trial, in your lifetimes. But if you have placed your faith in Christ, one thing you never have to worry about again is being punished by God for your sin. He’s already done that. And he’s placed Christ’s perfect life on you, so you never need to worry about being guilty before God. You are guilty before God, and so am I. But Christ isn’t—and it is his life we’re carrying now. We’ll have plenty of worries in our lifetime, but this is one thing we never have to worry about again.

That is the gospel. That’s the first thing Paul tells us.

The second thing is as surprising as the first (at least it is to me).

If God has made a way to reconcile people with himself, people have to know about it. Now of course, he’s God. He could easily appear to us in a vision, or just make it so that the truth miraculously appears in our minds. He does that occasionally: he can easily proclaim the message of the gospel to people on his own.

But most of the time, that’s not how he does it. Most of the time, he gives that responsibility to other people. That’s what Paul says in v. 18-20: God has given us the ministry of reconciliation; he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation; he has made us ambassadors for Christ; he makes his appeal through us.

This is crazy. This seems like such a risky way to go about it. Because I know me, and I know that 90% of the time, I don’t speak very well. I’ve prepared this sermon ahead of time, and I’m the only one talking; I can do this. But I can’t prepare for a conversation, because the other person isn’t going to do what I imagine they will.

And apparently (we find out later on in this letter, in chapter 11) Paul had the same struggle. He says he is “an unskilled speaker.” He was a great writer, not a great speaker.

Even so, God chooses to make his people ambassadors of the gospel, to give us the ministry of reconciliation. Why? Because when we minister in our weakness, that’s when Christ’s strength comes out. It’s an amazing thing when a fumbling, imperfect conversation about the gospel results in faith being born in someone else, because we can never kid ourselves that this person came to Christ because I did such a good job. No—clearly that was God’s doing.

And so, as imperfect as we are, we make our appeal; we implore people on behalf of Christ, “be reconciled to God.”

And that is what we see Paul do at the beginning of chapter 6:

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“In a favorable time I listened to you,

and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

He says what needs to be said. He puts it plainly to these people in Corinth who call themselves Christians but are rejecting the true gospel: Don’t say you’ve received God’s grace and then live as if you haven’t. Don’t wait for tomorrow to live reconciled to God. Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Don’t wait to understand everything, don’t wait to have it all figured out. Turn to him now, while it’s still today.

This is Paul’s job as an apostle, this is Priscila and Aquila’s job as his fellow workers, this is our job as Christians. This is the mission Christ gave us: to call people to repentance and faith in Christ in order to be reconciled to God. For that to happen, the good news of the gospel needs to be shared.

Living Examples of the Gospel (6.3-10)

But one thing we see consistently in the Bible is that the proclamation of the good news rarely if ever comes on its own; it is accompanied by a living example of what it looks like. And that’s where Paul goes next: he spends eight verses simply reminding the Corinthians of how Paul and his fellow workers live. 6.3:

3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything

In this passage Paul gives two arguments for why his opponents should listen to him. The first is in 5.20-21, which we saw earlier. He says, “Listen to what I’m saying because it’s what Christ is saying: God is making his appeal through us, and that appeal is to believe in what Christ did for you. Listen to what I’m saying because it’s the truth.”

That should be enough. But Paul doesn’t stop there. The second argument Paul gives as to why his opponents should listen to him is the example he and his fellow workers set in their lives. The way they live, the way they serve, the way they suffer. His second argument is entirely behavioral, experiential, and visible.

And the point is this: the gospel of Jesus Christ changes us. He said it earlier. We used to consider one another according to the flesh, we used to consider Christ according to the flesh. But not anymore. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Those aren’t just words. It’s not a sentimental statement. It is the literal truth. If we are in Christ, we are no longer what we used to be.

Now, I want to be careful here, because a lot of us will read Paul’s list in these verses and go, “Well, I’m not that good, so I must not be a Christian then.”

That’s not what Paul’s saying. Go read Romans 7—he freely acknowledges that there are some changes in us that are immediate and others that take an entire lifetime; we have to learn to observe all that Christ commanded. It’s not automatic. So if you’re still not up to the level Paul describes here, don’t worry; neither am I.

But if we are in Christ, by definition, as new creations, there will be change. And we will be growing in that change. Paul gives the example here of what mature, seasoned Christians look like—or to put it another way, what it looks like to be living examples of the gospel.

He gives positive examples—endurance (v. 4), purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, love (v. 6), truthful speech, the power of God, and righteousness for all situations (v. 7), in all circumstances (v. 8). This is the part of the Christian life that other people will look at, and say, “I want to be like that.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this. A lot of people will find problems with Christian doctrine and Christian ethics if they want to; those are the areas where people debate, where they try to poke holes in what we believe in order to discount it. That’s what Paul’s opponents are doing in Corinth.

But no one ever has a word to say against Christian character—not a credible word, at any rate. No one says, “I hate patient people. I hate kind people. I hate loving people. I hate honest people.” These are characteristics that are almost universally appealing.

And that’s normal, because every human being is made in the image of God, and we are created to respond positively to godly character.

However, some people will persist in resisting such character in themselves, because while it is appealing, it is also costly. And that is why Paul’s negative examples—or rather, examples most of us would consider negative. It’s easy to be patient and kind and loving and truthful when everything is going well.

But the true nature of our character shows itself when the world turns against us. And that’s what Paul says—not only is their character exemplary, it is exemplary in the hardest of situations. In afflictions, hardships, calamities (v. 4), beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger (v. 5), dishonor and slander (v. 8).

James K. A. Smith gave this great measuring rod; I’ve mentioned it many times in the past. He said, if you really want to know someone—what makes them who they are, down at the core of their being—the question you need to ask is not, “What do you believe?” or “What do you think?” but rather, “What do you want?”

What do you love? What do you desire?

If what you desire is comfort and ease and superficial happiness, then you’ll drop your patience at the slightest obstacle to those goals. We can really tell the value of your character when your character continues even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

And the reason why the Christian’s character is able to continue in the midst of suffering is because Christ transforms every circumstance into a grace for us. Paul says (at the end of v. 8):

Et la raison pour laquelle le caractère du chrétien peut continuer de se manifester et de grandir au milieu l’épreuve, c’est que Christ transforme toute circonstance pour en faire une occasion de grâce.

Paul dit (à la fin du v. 8) :

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Now in part, these things are true. They were often punished and dying (Paul himself was killed in Rome some time later). But they knew what was waiting for them after their death. They were poor, but their poverty wasn’t an obstacle to the spiritual enrichment of others. They were often sorrowful, but there was a joy in the Lord that didn’t disappear in their sorrow, because it didn’t depend on their circumstances.

They really did have very little—they left everything behind to follow Christ. And yet they possessed everything.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. For anyone who is in Christ, a trial becomes a grace. For anyone who is in Christ, a failure becomes a stepping-stone.

The Appeal of the Gospel (6.11-13)

Because when it is, the appeal God calls us to make as his ambassadors cannot be easily discarded. Paul says in v. 11:

11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.

Here’s what he’s saying to the unbelieving Corinthians who are listening to this letter. No matter what you may have heard from other sources, we are not burdening you, and we are not living falsely. Our heart is wide open. We are not holding you back, and the gospel is not holding you back; what’s holding you back is you.

So just as we’ve widened our hearts to the gospel and to you, widen your hearts also. We are living proof that it is possible to live for Christ, in good times and in bad—to be called liars and yet tell the truth, to be sorrowful and yet always rejoicing, to have nothing and yet possess everything.

And if we can do it, you can do it, because we’re not the ones who did it—this is what God has done in us. And he can do it in you too.

At this point, the Corinthians have no more credible ammunition to throw at Paul and his fellow workers. They can debate theology if they want, but they cannot speak against the faithful Christians they know with any seriousness.

And if what Paul says about his own character is verifiably true…might it not also be true that what he and his fellow workers believe might be true also?

You see, God uses the gospel to bring us to faith, but he does it in more than one way. Sometimes people hear the gospel and are fully convinced by the Holy Spirit—right away. That happens, and it’s marvelous when it does.

Other times, though, they hear the gospel and go, “Okaaaaaay…” And they remain doubtful.

But over time, they see what the lives of their Christian friends look like, they see the practical application of the gospel, and they come to believe that what they used to think is crazy, might actually be true. That’s the Holy Spirit at work as well.

We can’t know what means the Holy Spirit will use. So we always have to have all our tools at the ready.

Conclusion

And here are the tools Paul gives us.

The first is the gospel. It sounds silly to say it, but there is no salvation, for anyone, without the gospel. That means we need to know what the gospel is—everything we talked about earlier. We need to study it, to think about it, to consider it, pray about it and meditate on it. We need to grow in our knowledge of the gospel, because getting the gospel right matters.

That shouldn’t be controversial, but it is, so I’ll say it again: getting the gospel right matters.

If you ever go to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, it’s sort of scary, because the statues they make of celebrities are really good. So good that occasionally a celebrity will come in and stand next to their statue, and as long as they don’t move, you can’t tell the difference.

Here’s the thing though: only one of those is actually the real person.

When we get the gospel wrong, we run the risk of sending someone to a wax statue of Jesus instead of Jesus himself. We run the risk of pointing to someone who looks a lot like Jesus and even sounds a lot like Jesus, but who isn’t Jesus, and who cannot save them.

Now I don’t want to alarm anyone—God is very gracious. And thankfully, all too often when he sees someone heading towards the wax statue of Jesus, he grabs them by the shoulders and says, “No no, he’s this way.” It isn’t up to us to get it perfectly.

But this is the Savior we love. I want to know him—him, not an alternate version of him. And when I talk about him, I want to say true things about him.

The gospel is the first tool God gives us, and we should do everything we can to know it as well as we can.

The second tool he gives us is our lives. Paul’s life, and the life of his fellow workers, legitimized the gospel for the Corinthians. As they say, the proof is in the pudding—the Corinthians had a harder time doubting the gospel when they saw what the gospel did in Paul.

Now this means something that will make a lot of us uncomfortable. It means that we need to give people access to ourselves, and our community, in such a way that they can see the gospel lived out in various circumstances among us. When we’re doing stuff together—whether it’s going to church or home group, or bowling—unbelievers should be included whenever possible. Because they need to not only hear the gospel; they need to see what it looks like.

This takes a lot of time, it’s not easy, and it’s risky, because it means being able to say what Paul says to the Corinthians: our heart is wide open. A lot of us don’t want to open our hearts to others, because that will mean letting others have access to parts of us we want to keep for ourselves.

But that is what it looks like to be an ambassador for Christ. It’s risky, but it’s incredibly freeing. There is nothing more freeing than having nothing to hide. People need to see the gospel.

And when we do it, we can use the last tool Paul gives us here, which is the appeal. We need to make appeals for the gospel. Paul says, “Our hearts are wide open… Widen your hearts also.”

We need to be unafraid to not stop with a presentation of the gospel, but to say, “I implore you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. Please believe this. Accept it. Put your trust in it.” No appeal you will ever make is more important than this one.

Now if we live this way, if we use all the tools God gives us, will it be effective every time? No—at least not in the way we think of the word.

But every time a disciple of Christ is made, every time a person comes to Christ in faith and then proceeds through a life of discipleship, this visible presence of the gospel, manifested in the lives of his people, will be there. And you never know what God will do after these conversations, after these periods of friendship where unbelievers see what the gospel looks like in practice. God saves, and he does it in his timing. He calls us to be faithful with what he’s given us.

So we want to be a church that embodies the gospel for the people of our city. We want the people Paris to hear the gospel, to see the gospel, and to accept the gospel. This is our prayer, and God is faithful.

Vision: To the praise of his glorious grace (Ephesians 1.1-14)

The next few months are going to be critical for us as a church. As we said earlier, we have plans to purchase a building. Many of you have put in so much time over the last eight months or so on this project. I can’t overstate how grateful I am for you. And for those of you who haven’t been working, I trust that you’ve been praying, and I’m incredibly grateful for that as well.

But I feel like we need to get real for a minute and say things as plainly as possible. Over the next few months, one of two things will happen.

Scenario 1: God will miraculously give us what we need to sign the commitment to purchase at the end of September. At this point, the team who has been working hard to raise funds will go into overdrive, trying to raise the rest of the money, contact partners, get everything ready for the purchase. And if God makes that happen, then we will need to go to work getting the building ready.

That scenario is really exciting; but we’ll be working so hard that the risk of a burnout for many or all of us will be very high.

Scenario 2: We won’t be able to get what we need to sign the commitment to purchase, and the project will be dead in the waters. In one sense that will at least be clear: when we’ve prayed, we’ve said, “Lord, if you don’t want this to go through, please don’t let it go through.” So if it doesn’t, at least that’s a clear indication that this building isn’t the place for us. And all the work that’s been put into the project can go to another building a little further down the road; nothing will be lost.

On the other hand, we’ve put so much work into this, and we’ve dreamed about it and wished for it for so long, that if it doesn’t work we’ll have to navigate a kind of withdrawal as a church. What will church life look like if we have to stay in this building for longer than we’d hoped? What will service look like for many of you, if you’re no longer working on the building project?

One of these two scenarios, or a variation of them, will happen in the next few weeks. And in either case, we need to remember the point. Why we’re doing any of this in the first place, and who our God is. 

So this week we’re going to go really big, and see a very broad overview of God’s plan for the world he created—and by extension, the direction we want to go as a church. And then starting next week, we’ll be taking three weeks to talk about how we believe God calls us to act in his plan for the world.

We’re going to be in the first fourteen verses of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today. And here is God’s plan, in two sentences that these verses hit again and again (and which Paul spends the rest of the letter fleshing out): 

1. In Christ, God saved his family.

2. In Christ, God will save all creation.

3. In Christ, God will be glorified.

In Christ, God has made a family for himself (v. 3-6, 11-14).

V. 3:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. … 11 In [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Now I know that people always get hung up on the word “predestined” in verses 5 and 11, and it’s a really important word we’ll come back to in a bit. But there are other two key words here: adoption and inheritance.

The Ephesian church was likely made up of mostly Gentile believers, so unlike Jewish believers, they didn’t have any claim to the God of the Jews based on their ethnicity. And yet, they have been adopted by this God; they have received an inheritance from him, just as if they were natural-born members of his people.

Paul’s saying that Christ came and lived and died on the cross and rose again to reconcile people to himself, and out of those people to build a family. And as we saw before, God’s plan was to unite people to himself from all nations, all people groups, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and from these really disparate groups to make one huge, global community. A community not based on mutual advancement or on nationalism, but on God’s incredible grace to us in Jesus Christ.

I hope you see that if this is the goal of the gospel—to take people from all countries and nationalities and backgrounds and social groups and make them one new family—then Paris is the ideal place for the gospel to take root. In essence, the gospel allows us to take the good of community living (that we’ve more or less left behind in our modern culture) and splice it into the good of the multiculturalism we have in our city. That unity and diversity that our society so badly wants today? The only thing that can actually make it happen is the gospel. The gospel allows us to be different people, from different backgrounds, and yet still be rooted and anchored into one community, with a common faith, a common ethic, and a common love.

It’s really easy to read these verses and to be personally, individually encouraged by them—I am every time I read them. But we should never miss one really important truth: every first-person pronoun we see here is plural, never singular. It’s never “I”; it’s always “we”. God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He adopted us; he redeemed us; he forgave our trespasses; we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

Christ did not come just to save “people”; he came to save a people. He came to save a family. His plan is not individualistic. He pours out his love on us as individuals, yes; but he never does it to the exclusion of all the other people he has saved.

Look around you. Look at your brothers and sisters in Christ. If they have placed their faith in Christ, there is no Christian faith for YOU, without THEM. The Christian faith comes with the luggage of all the Christians around you, along with everything packed inside.

In Christ, God has reconciled his people to himself. Now there may be some people here today who don’t know Christ, and who aren’t following him today…but who will know him, and who will follow him soon. God knows who you are, and he knows what he is planning for you. If you will come to him in faith, your salvation is every bit as sure as ours; it is so sure that Paul can refer to your salvation, and ours, in the past tense. God has already done this, even if we don’t believe it yet. And the day that you believe in him after hearing the gospel, you will be sealed with the Holy Spirit—what God has planned for you will be made official. Your adoption papers will be stamped, and your inheritance—which we’ll see in a minute—will be waiting.

So the first part of God’s plan is to reconcile his people to himself. The second part of his plan is to reconcile all of creation to himself.

Christ will reconcile all of creation to God (v. 7-10).

V. 7:

In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

It’s one of the central truths of the Bible: God created the world perfect and unified. His creation was perfect—no sickness, no disease, no suffering or death. It was a place where heaven and earth overlapped, in a sense. The perfect God was united to his perfect image, man and woman, in this perfect creation. But man rebelled against God, and that rebellion is called sin. Sin is like a cancer that came into the world with that first rebellion and corrupted everything. It essentially separated heaven from earth, and the universe became a place of suffering and sickness and death.

You know how a lot of kids draw on the walls when they’re little? They think they’re redecorating and it’s pretty, but in fact they’re just ruining a perfectly good paint job? My kids never did that, thank goodness; but if they had, I would definitely have sat them down and dealt with the problem; I would try to get them to change, to help them become the kind of kids who don’t draw on the walls. But does that mean I’m just going to leave my walls unpainted and scribbled on? Of course not—after dealing with the kids, I’ll repaint the walls to get them to look the way they did before!

Now, put yourself in God’s shoes. You’ve created this beautiful, perfect world—a veritable paradise—and you’ve created man in your image to live in this world. And man screws it all up. Man corrupts everything, and the entire creation is broken. If you were God, and you saw this, would you really just save man and throw away the rest of your creation? Would you not also want to take your creation that man had broken and corrupted…and make it new again too? Bring it back to its original glory and splendor? In fixing what man broke in himself, would you not also want to fix what he broke in the world you created?

Well, Paul says that’s exactly what God wants, and that’s exactly what he will do. When Christ returns, he will rid creation of sin, once and for all—and all of its effects. No more sickness, no more death, no more evil, no more sadness or guilt or disappointment. The Bible calls this renewed creation the new heavens and the new earth.

Now this isn’t just a detail; the new heavens and the new earth aren’t just an aesthetic bonus. This promise is God’s determination and power to always do what he sets out to do. His plans will never be thwarted. If he means creation to be a certain way, he will make it that way. If he plans for us to be a certain way, he will make us that way.

All this is important because so often we think of our faith as something a little unsure, like maybe there’s a chance that everything we hope for in Christ won’t work for me. For the Christian sitting next to me, sure—they’re doing really well—but I don’t think I can make it.

And you’re right. You can’t. You can’t. But he will.

I mentioned earlier that the word “predestined” is important here. It is, because it means that all of this was God’s plan all along, and it is all his doing. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, and he’s the one who brings it to pass. 

Take time this week to look at the first fourteen verses of this letter, and ask yourself what exactly we contribute to this picture. We come with our sin, we hear the gospel, we believe the gospel (which in chapter 2 Paul will say is also God’s doing!)…and then we praise him. That’s it. Every substantial action in all of our salvation comes from God. He is the main actor here; he is the one who brings it to pass, which is why all of this is to the praise of his glorious grace.

In Christ, God will be glorified (v. 6, 11-12, 14).

You may have noticed that I skipped over one of our key words earlier. We talked about adoption, but we didn’t talk about “inheritance.” I skipped over it because I knew we’d be coming here. 

When we talk about the new heavens and the new earth, and the firm assurance we have that God will make all things new again, it’d be easy to imagine that that is our inheritance.

But it isn’t. As wonderful as all of this will be, the beauty and wonder and joy of heaven is not the main focus of our inheritance. Our inheritance is something else.

Look at v. 11-12 one more time: 

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

What is our inheritance? That we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. You see, the focus of our salvation, the focus of our hope, and the focus of our inheritance are all one and the same: Jesus Christ. His majesty. His grace. His beauty. His glory. He is the sun around which the solar system of our faith orbits, and that is very good news for us, because we were created to see him and marvel at him and reflect his glory back to him in praise. 

Three times in these verses, Paul says it. V. 6: To the praise of his glorious grace. V. 12: so that we might be to the praise of his glory. V. 14: to the praise of his glory. That’s the goal of everything God is doing in the world and in us—that is the goal of everything he is doing for us.

And it’s not an egocentric goal on his part. We’ve all heard stories of people who discover their passion—a piano prodigy starts playing for the first time, and he realizes, “This is what I’m here to do. This is what I was born for.” A couple has a baby, and as they look at that baby they’re overwhelmed with love for that baby that they think, “This is what we’re here for.”

V. 6 and v. 12 and v. 14 are God saying to us, “This is what you’re here for. To see my glory.” God’s glory is everything he is—all of his attributes—made visible. We can’t even conceive of how incredible seeing God for who he really is will be. Heaven will never be boring. It will be one marvel after another, one breathtaking scene after another, with one central focus the whole time: God himself, manifested in Jesus Christ.

And that’s huge, because every time we see Christ, we’ll be reminded that we rightly shouldn’t be there. Not only are we not divine—not only are we creatures, and he is the Creator—we’re sinners who have rebelled against him. And the only reason why we’re permitted to see this unbelievable God is because Christ came and lived and died and was raised to make us holy.

Heaven will never be boring. We deserve none of it, and in Christ we receive all of it. Where else will we possibly want to look than to him?

Conclusion

This is the plan of God: to save his people and to save all things in heaven and on earth, to the praise of his glorious grace. I wanted to start this new school year with a big vision of God—as big as we could possibly get—because this vision is essential for what will follow.

After this passage, Paul is going to talk about how this plan works itself out in us as individuals and as a body, and then in chapter 4 he’s going to get super practical: since all these things are true, this is how we should live. But he started the letter the way he did, with this passage, for a very good reason. If we begin with “Here’s what you need to do,” we’ll get it wrong every time. 

Oswald Chambers wrote: “The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had… The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.” 

We can be of little use to God, and we will find very little joy in him, if “ministry” is our focus, or even if “the Christian life” is our focus. Because there will always be something that makes the Christian life difficult; there will always be some circumstance or some sin or weakness in us that will make it less than we think it should be.

But the person who keeps their eyes firmly on God, on his work in Christ, on what he has done and who he is, is finally able to serve as he should, and rejoice as he should, because he isn’t preoccupied with “finding his place” or “using his gifts” or “being good enough”. His place is with God—and that’s where he is! Such a person is as content sweeping the floors as preaching, because as he sweeps the floors he knows that he is blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

And this person’s service is joyful, because he knows that God works all things according to the counsel of his will—he perfectly accomplishes his plan. So there is no pressure on us.

For the next three weeks we’re going to be looking at the vision of our church, and how we believe God calls us to work out our salvation in our specific body, in our specific context: to embody the gospel in Paris, to train disciples who make disciples, and to send out Christians equipped for the ministry. But we will never be able to fulfill that vision if that vision is our focus, and we will never be happy if we try. 

Our focus has to be him. He is too good and too great to be bottled into a three-point vision statement, or in a list of items in our calendar. He is our vision; he is our heart; he is our joy. 

This is the plan of God: to save his people and to save all things in heaven and on earth, to the praise of his glorious grace. 

1 Timothy 4-7-10

Recently I saw a book for sale on the Internet called “99+1 good reasons not to exercise”. With it, the item’s description: “The ideal gift to remove all guilt from those who are not jogging addicts.” Of course, this is in the 2nd degree, in a humorous tone. We all know very well that sport and physical activity in general are necessary for the proper development and maintenance of our bodies, that it's good for us. We can find all the reasons in the world for not exercising (“I don't have the time”, “it's too cold outside”, “it's raining”, “And sometimes some of these excuses can be really legitimate, and sometimes... a little less so...

But despite the multitude of “false good reasons” we can find for not exercising, this doesn't change the fact that sport is good for our health, and our bodies need it. We all know that regular physical activity is good for us, but very often - when it comes to actually doing it - we have to fight against a whole host of reasons for not doing it. I'm certainly not going to judge anyone on this point, I've had a racing bike in Paris since 2021, and since then, it's been carefully stored on my balcony and hasn’t moved.

If the so-called good reasons for not exercising are numerous, the so-called good reasons for not seeking God and not committing to God are even more so, and can take various forms: they can be false teachings that look biblical but turn people away from Jesus Christ, they can be philosophical precepts such as “life is short, so make the most of it”, they can be relativism, the idea that “each person has his or her own truth, that there is no single truth”, etc.

But despite all this, the greatest need of human beings remains God Himself. We'll look at this today with today's message: “3 great reasons to practice being committed to God”.

I – To commit to God is to commit to truth

A few words of context are necessary to fully understand the purpose of the passage:

Timothy is a young pastor just starting out in the ministry, and Paul is his spiritual mentor. Paul asks him to restore order to the church in Ephesus, notably by refuting the false teachings circulating and instead to present the truth of the Gospel, both in his words, deeds and conduct.

In chapters 2 and 3 in particular, Paul explains how we should behave in the Church - how the truth of the Gospel should transform us as Christians, and how elders and deacons should exemplify this. He concludes by recalling the reason and source of this transformation: JESUS CHRIST Himself (ch.3 v.16).

However (beginning of ch.4), Paul explains that not everyone believes and follows this truth, but that some stray into false teachings and totally useless rules, and Timothy must refute these false teachings circulating in the Ephesian church.

Then comes verse 7: “But reject profane and old wives’ fables and exercise yourself toward godliness. (version: NKJV).” For example, the word “godliness”, a central term in this text, is translated as “piety” in the ESV translation and is to be understood in this sense: GODLINESS>> COMMITMENT TO GOD. The mention of “old wives fables*” is surprising and seems to refer to a context specific to Ephesus. The ESV translation is “irrelevant and silly myths”.

Finally, Paul says, “Reject irreverent, silly myths and exercise or train yourself towards”. Paul uses the Greek verb “gumnazo” (gymnastics) to present commitment to God as an exercise that Christians must perform on a daily basis. He develops this idea further.

Paul first tells them to “reject irreverent, silly myths that are contrary to the faith” and then “train yourselves instead to commit to God, doing this as a daily discipline.”

In my opinion, the relationship between these 2 orders is quite simple: the lies around us are so numerous, that we must continually practice committing ourselves to God, to the truth, so as not to let these lies distract us.

The exercise of committing or clinging to God stems from what we believe. So we must be sure to filter our thoughts to always believe the pure truth of the Gospel. Believing this Gospel truth has the consequence that we will allow ourselves to be shaped by it in order to cling to God and love Him more and more: love Him with all our heart, soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5).

This is the only command given in this passage: to reject lies and instead practice commitment to God. The rest of the passage serves to explain why we need to do this.

3 great reasons to train ourselves to commit to God: the 1st great reason is that committing to God means committing to the truth. We'll now see in part 2 that to committing to God is to commit to life.

II – To commit to God is to commit to life

Then comes the famous verse 8, which is the favorite verse of Christians who do not like sport: “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. (NKJV). / For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come (ESV) ”. Contrary to a fairly widespread interpretation, Paul is not contrasting physical exercise with commitment to God.

Rather, he makes an analogy, explaining why we should train ourselves to become ever more commitment to God using the example of sport, which began in verse 7 with the Greek verb “gumnazo”, and is taken up again in verse 8 with the word “gumnasia” for “physical exercise”. Paul deliberately and intentionally uses the lexical field of sport to refer to the work of committing to God every day of our lives. What does this mean?

Sport characterizes human life. Regular and persevering physical activity is beneficial: it characterizes a healthy lifestyle and helps maintain a certain level of physical health. In Greco-Roman culture (as in our own), sport was seen as a means of becoming better, of surpassing oneself, of growing, of disciplining the body… Many Greco-Roman cities, such as Ephesus, had gymnasiums where citizens could go there and train, and which were used to train young people through physical activity. In France, for example, we have the Ministry of Youth and Sports (it seems to me that the wording has changed with the context of the Olympic Games, but you get the idea). Using the image of sport was very relevant for the Ephesians and for Timothy, whose father was Greek. They weren't necessarily great sportsmen, but the image of sport spoke to them.

Paul says that sport is useful for few things, but commitment to God is useful for everything, because it has the promise of the present life and of that which is to come.

In fact, commitment to God characterizes true life. Practicing commitment to God is difficult because everything in this world and in our own flesh pushes us to detach ourselves from God. Commitment to God literally means swimming against the current, all the time. And Paul is honest with us: it's hard, it's intense... But it's proof that we're alive. And here is a very important point :

Nobody exercises IN ORDER TO be alive... it's BECAUSE we're alive that we can exercise. A dead person, by definition, cannot engage in any physical activity. Similarly, commitment to God is only possible for those who are spiritually alive, who have been born again. It's BECAUSE we're saved and alive in Jesus Christ that we can and do practice committing ourselves to Him, whatever the price, it's always worth it. It's not our human efforts that can save us; on the contrary, the exercise of godliness is a consequence of salvation. We are saved in Jesus Christ, we are a new creation, and just as physical exercise - though beneficial - characterizes our human - earthly - life, so the exercise of attachment to God characterizes our new life, true life, now and forever.

Verse 9: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance (NKJV). / The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance (ESV).

3 great reasons to train ourselves to commit to God: commitment to God is commitment to the truth, commitment to God is commitment to life... and finally: commitment to God produces results. We’ll get into this point after a break- let us now sing.

III – Commitment to God produces results

Piety or godliness has the promise of the present life and the life to come.

Paul continues his development in verse 10: “For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe (NKJV).”. Other translations say “For to this end we toil and strive” (ESV).

Hope in God means hard work and struggle. This is because hope in God rivals all the false hopes of this world: there's a fight, a struggle. This struggle takes place first and foremost in our minds, but also within our lives, in our relationships with our peers. Our colleagues at work, our friends, sometimes our government, sometimes even our own family, sometimes life's circumstances : not only do they not encourage us to persevere in our commitment to God, they can even seek to turn us away from it (this is one of the reasons why Paul in chapter 2 encourages us to pray for our authorities so that we can freely live out our commitment to God). We're all in that kind of situation where we say to ourselves “if I could put my faith aside at least now, it would save me this or that difficulty”.

Let's keep in mind that God, in choosing to save us, has enabled us to persevere to the end.

Commitment to God nourishes our hope: we see in verses 1 to 5 a vicious circle: those who follow false teachings, which lead them to practice stupid and useless rules that cause them to go further and further astray. In opposition to this, a virtuous circle in verses 7 to 10: those who put their hope in God (v.10), and this hope leads them to work for what is of eternal value, and this work makes them grow in hope and the promise of eternal life. On the one hand, a vicious circle that leads some astray into lies; on the other, a virtuous circle that allows others to grow in truth. Commitment to God produces results.

Commitment to God bears witness to the Gospel: in the context of this letter, Timothy must embody the Gospel for the lost. The salvation of the lost is an important theme in Paul’s letter to Timothy (several verses testify to this, and a mention appears in v. 10: to be understood in the sense that Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation for all men whatever they may be, and therefore only those who place their faith in Jesus Christ are saved). For Timothy, as for us, our commitment to God will enable us to bear witness to these people. The message of the Gospel is communicated not just by words, but by a whole life: by deeds, by conduct, by behavior.

I have a group of non-Christian friends that I've known since the beginning of high school (10 years already). When they found out I was a Christian, there were a lot of questions and discussions about faith for the first 6 months since my conversion. As soon as they had the answers to their questions, we had fewer and fewer discussions on the topic and they continued observing my life: so the witness I had with them, first of all verbally, was also extended through the way I lived my life (it was of course a very imperfect testimony, constantly being perfected, and this is also why Paul encourages us to practice godliness, because even beyond our imperfections and shortcomings, it produces results).

This is all the more true with the people with whom we live daily, in our families, in our marriage, but also with our colleagues at work, for example. Our attachment to God has a powerful impact on the people around us.

TO CONCLUDE

Finally, Paul says to Timothy in verse 11 “Command and teach these things (ESV)”, which shows that this principle applies not only to Timothy, but also to all the Ephesian Christians, as well as to us.

The 3 great reasons to train oneself to commit to God:

• To commit to God is to commit to the truth.

• To commit to God is to commit to life

• Committing yourself to God produces results

Practice godliness / practice cleaving to God: this means persevering in faith, persevering in obedience to God. This spiritual training is necessary on a daily basis, because our carnal nature and the devil and the world are at work every day to turn us away from it, prescribing hundreds of “so-called good reasons” not to do it.

For the Ephesians, as for us, “old wives’ fables” are lies to be rejected. I'll give you some examples of the main “false good reasons” for not clinging to God that I've had to face throughout my Christian life and still face today:

• Lie number 1: “Life is short and goes by very quickly, so make the most of it.” In other words, use every moment of your earthly life for pleasure, to treat yourself. It's a piece of advice we hear a lot these days. It originated in Greek philosophy (Epicureanism) and was promulgated by people who did not believe in the existence of an afterlife, and who thought that everything depended on this earthly life. This is in total opposition to the hope of the Gospel and to what the apostle Paul tells us. If you struggle with this lie, remember that commitment to God has the promise of life now and life to come.

• Lie number 2: “The world is hard and mean, so you too must be tough, otherwise you'll get stepped on.” A piece of advice I heard a lot as a child, and which I also heard later in my professional life. In other words, “conform to the world to be like it”, another “false good reason” not to commit myself to God. Practicing godliness is precisely to practice conforming to God's will, and not to our carnal will or the will of the world.

• Lie number 3: “Where there's a will, there's a way.” If I have faith in myself and I'm determined and organized and never give up, nothing is impossible for me. What I need is to believe in myself and my abilities.” In other words, the solution is not in God but in you and your abilities, this lie tells us that I can be Almighty God all by myself - here's another “so-called good reason” not to cling to God, another lie. Practising godliness is precisely practising putting God's will before our own, and handing over every one of our projects and plans to Him.

The list goes on and on! I haven't even mentioned all the false beliefs around materialism, money, sexuality... If I don't work daily to cling to God and the truth, THESE lies will gain ground in my mind and little by little guide my words, my choices, my actions, my decisions... they will impact my relationships with those around me, and above all, my relationship with God.

Christians, churches and Christian organizations have sometimes completely turned away from the faith because they have allowed lies to creep in at the expense of the truth - and the letter to Timothy gives us several warnings on this subject. The battle is always in what we believe.

Let's reject the lies and train ourselves daily to commit to God, The Only One who is the exclusive Truth, The Only One who is the guarantor of Life (the present life, and the life to come), The Only One who can truly transform us to make us truly better and truly happy.

Éphésiens 3.14–21

General introduction:
In your opinion, what does God expect from us?
• What would you say?
What would be the first thing that comes to mind?
• That we obey him,
o that we follow his commandments.
• Or rather that we talk about Jesus
o and his sacrifice around us.
• Or, is it rather to love our neighbor
o and to serve him.
All these things are good things,
• And God wants us to be able to do these things.
But what all these things have in common:
• is that they are, in a way, the result
o of something more fundamental
 and more relational
God wants first
• that we can each know his love for us.
• That we may taste how good he is
Textual introduction:
The letter to the Ephesians is a letter written by Paul,
And so far, the apostle has encouraged us
• through truths
o that are beyond us.
• Truths about God,
o about his character,
o about his plan
o about what he has done

• Truths that overwhelm us when we think about them.
And so from the beginning of his letter,
• when Paul blesses God / praises him,
o He plunges us directly
 into the immensity of God's goodness for us.
 Into his love.
Dominique Anger, in his commentary on Ephesians
• speaks to us of God's love
o through God's GIFT
GIFT. We have been:
• Chosen: God chose us
o before the creation of the world
• Adopted: In his love, he predestined us
o to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ.
• Delivered: In Jesus, by his blood, God has
o redeemed us, forgiven us of our sins,
 in accordance with the riches of his grace
• Enlightened: He has made known to us his plan for humanity,
o namely that Christ reigns over all creation
• Acquired: He has made us his people,
o Jews and non-Jews are now part of one people
• United: Finally he has united us to Christ
o and thus united one another
Paul will develop these things in the rest of chapter 1 and up to the middle
of chapter 3.
But Paul does not simply want
• people to know these things
• or even simply to believe that it is true

Obviously it is necessary
• but Paul wants more for us, he wants much more.
• God wants infinitely more for us. He wants us to grasp these things,
• to know these things,
• he wants us to experience these things,
• to live them in our whole being.
That is why - he says - I bend my knees before the Father.
• Recognizing that we are all
o totally dependent on him
Paul wants us to experience the power of the gospel.
• Not simply to understand the immensity of Christ's love for us
o but also to experience it,
o live it,
 deep within us,
 even in our guts if I may put it that way.
Paul prays that we experience,
• From now on the power of the gospel
o by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Power to Receive Christ
In verses 16-17a,
• i.e. the first half of verse 17,
Paul prays for the same thing,
That Christians may be:
• Mightily strengthened by the HOLY SPIRIT in their inner being
o or
• Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith.

These two things are interchangeable
Here Paul is not praying for Christians
• to receive the HOLY SPIRIT
• or to receive Christ
No, Paul has already said rather in Eph. 1.13 that
• the day they believed in the gospel that saves,
o they also received the HOLY SPIRIT.
o They received Christ in their heart
No, Paul prays here, rather, that this same HOLY SPIRIT,
• the 3rd person of the Trinity,
may
• Powerfully strengthen them in their inner being
• or that Christ dwells in their heart
In other words,
• that the SE be more and more active in them,
o that the SE become the master on board, the pilot,
 in their inner being
• that Jesus take more and more possession of their life
o That he be more and more at home
 in their heart.
The inner being or the heart both refer
• to the same invisible dimension of the person.
• It is the center of our being
• or the control tower as Dominique Anger would say.

And so, being strengthened by the Spirit
• in our inner being
• is also hosting Christ in our hearts.
But not as a guest who would come to spend a night at your house,
• whom you install on the sofa or in the guest room
• A guest who will do his best not to disturb the course of your life too
much.
No, Paul is speaking here, that Christ inhabits the dwelling,
• that he makes it his home.
• That he settles at home in your heart.
When I arrived a little before Liz in our new apartment in Paris,
• It was a mess. Enora and her brother Augustin may still remember it.
• There were boxes everywhere,
o too many pieces of furniture,
o two mattresses.
o In short, a mess.
To make the apartment habitable,
• before Liz came to France
I started opening the boxes,
• tidying up the cupboards,
o so that it would be at least habitable.
When Liz arrived,
• there was a new wave of tidying up,
o Well, a tsunami even.
We moved the furniture around,
• we got rid of useless things (guitars, and my piano, etc.),

• better optimised the cupboards.
• In short, we made sure that the apartment pleased us,
o in which we would enjoy living.
This is exactly what the Holy Spirit does
• when he comes to live in the heart of the Christian:
The Holy Spirit does not come just as a visitor,
• But as a resident,
o Who wants to reorganizes everything inside.
When I put everything away before Liz arrived,
• I was happy,
o a little proud of myself,
o I said to myself, Liz is going to arrive in a nice apartment.
And when she arrived,
• she was happy to be able to live with me,
• and start this life together.
She did not say to me: "What is this mess in the cupboards,
• and this little piece of furniture all rotten,
• do you think I am going to live in there"
No, patiently, gently, she said to me, maybe we could reorganize a little.
• Then little by little we changed a little
or a lot
 Powerfully in fact,
That’s exactly what the Spirit does when he moves into our hearts,
• he transforms from the inside
• patiently and gently
• but powerfully, radically

And he does it in accordance with the riches of his glory.
He doesn’t do home staging,
• by repainting an old wardrobe in taupe,
• and throwing a herringbone throw over the old sofa.
No, he replaces the old with brand new, much nobler materials.
Here’s what Richard Coekin, a planting pastor and director of the Co-
mision church network in England, says:
“When the Spirit of Christ moves in, he gradually redecorates everywhere.
• Room by room, the old, horrible wallpaper of selfishness is replaced by a
brand new wallpaper called love;
• the old ceilings darkened by the fear of death are repainted with the
bright colors of hope in the resurrection of Christ;
• the old dirty carpets stained by years of immorality are replaced with
new clean carpets of purity and kindness;
• and the old rickety furniture of idolatry is gradually replaced with new
sparkling ministries that revere Jesus.”
Paul prays that the Ephesians would experience this transforming power
of the Spirit.
• Paul prays that the SE would work mightily in them.
I don’t know how you feel about this kind of prayer.
Sometimes when we think of this
• we think of a demonstration of power,
or extraordinary miracles
 like healing or something.
• That’s not what Paul is talking about.
Sometimes we might think of power
• that would give us influence.
• Speak with power, have impact.
Paul is not praying for an outward demonstration of power
• but for powerful action of the SE

o in our inner being,
o in our heart,
• For a hidden power,
o that which works in us.
And while God is doing this, God is also doing something else:
• He allows us to know the boundless love of Christ for us
2. The power to know the (boundless) love of Christ
Middle of verse 17 let’s read together:
I pray that you may be rooted and grounded in love
• 18 that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ,
• 19 and to know this love that surpasses all knowledge
Again, Paul has already spoken to them about God’s love for them,
• which was manifested in Christ and by his sacrifice
• and I invite you to reread the first 2 chapters of his letter on this subject.
But Paul prays this time that this love
• immeasurable,
• which surpasses all knowledge
o Be known,
o Experienced by the Ephesians
I don’t just want you to know how much God loved you,
• I now want you to experience it more and more.
And you see this goes hand in hand with the transforming work of the
Holy Spirit in us.
It is not first that the Holy Spirit transforms us,
• that he takes control of our hearts,
• and only then will we know the love of Christ for us.

No, it is as Christ dwells in our hearts,
• As the Holy Spirit transforms us,
o That we also experience the love of Christ for us.
And the more this love of Christ is lived
• the more it impacts our hearts and our lives.
Moreover Paul says: be rooted and grounded in love:
• The love of Christ is the soil
o in which God makes us take root,
 to make us grow,
 so that we become mature.
Love is the solid foundation on which God builds.
Paul prays that we experience,
• know the love of Christ in all its dimensions,
• the width, the length, the depth, the height of his love.
And there again - the love of Christ for us is not just
• great and vast,
it is immensely great,
• to the infinite measure of God
o it surpasses all knowledge.
And yet Paul says: I pray that you know it, that you experience it.
• Knowing the unknowable is a bit strange.
Last September, Liz and I were in Montenegro
• and we drove up to the peaks overlooking the Bay of Kotor. It’s
Magnificent!
We knew the bay was big,
• because we had already driven on the coast all around
o and it had taken us a while,

o so we knew it was relatively big.
Then we got in the cars,
• and you know how it is,
• you zigzagged up the side of the mountain to climb.
• And at each turn,
o we had an ever more incredible view of the bay.
• The higher we went, the more we saw of the bay
o and the more we realized the size of the lake
• and there at the top, next to it, even more immense
o the sea as far as the eye could see.
We can’t go around the love of God,
• but we can
o sometimes in an intense and strong way
o or sometimes in small touches
 experience the love of God
Christians know that God loves them,
• you know that God loves you,
• but Paul prays
o and God wants
 that you know that he loves you.
So what does it look like to experience his love,
• to taste how good the Lord is?
There are surely various ways, but Paul says:
• I pray that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints
o what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of
Christ.

Knowing the love of Christ is an experience specific to each person but
which is lived especially with the church.
John Stot comments on these verses by saying:
The isolated Christian may indeed grasp something of the love of Christ,
but what he grasps will remain confined to the limits of his own personal
experience. To understand the fullness of God’s love, nothing less than the
whole people of God is needed.
One of the ways we taste the love of God
• in a very special way together
• is in our times of worship as a community.
Sometimes as we sing
• we also hear the congregation with us
• speak the wonderful truths of the gospel.
• Of God’s love for us
• and we taste, we experience the sweetness of God’s love for us.
Very often,
• I am moved
o and I feel my lower lip move less,
o because I realize, I experience the love of God
o and I say to myself
 this is true Lord, thank you.
Or in moments of brotherly communion,
• or I benefit from the kindness of a brother or sister.
In my family we didn't hug each other too much.
• we weren't really huggers,
When my mother died in 2015,
• I remember saying to myself.
o Lord are you simply the God who reforms thoughts.

• Then, one morning I went to church,
o and a brother took me in his arms,
o and there it was no longer him that I had in mind,
 it was the Lord.
 He took me in his arms.
I have experienced and continue to experience the love of God through
the church.
Dear brothers and sisters:
I pray that you may be able to comprehend
• with all the saints
o what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of
Christ,
• and to know this love which surpasses knowledge,
• that
o you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
To be filled with all the fullness of God,
• is not
o becoming divine or being equal to God,
No, being filled with the fullness of God
• it is the result of one part
o of the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us,
o and on the other hand of knowing the love of God.
• It is reaching the maturity that God wants us to reach;
• The fullness of God
o it is his perfection
o Being entirely directed by him
3. But is it even possible?
It seems a bit big anyway,
Is Paul speaking in a hyperbolic way?

• Knowing the unknowable love
• being filled with all the fullness of God
Isn't Paul going a bit far there anyway?
Dear friends,
• not if we realize how powerful the God we pray to is:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or think,
according to the power that works within us
God is able to do
• super exceedingly to say more literally
• beyond measure, super abundantly.
We are far from being able to imagine how powerful God is.
Think of the greatest number you know,
• not with powers
o but a number you can state
• Is it good you have it?
• It is nothing compared to what God can state!
Think of the best vacation you could ever have?
• Is it good you have it?
• It is nothing compared to what God can do!
We have no idea of the power of God.
So that is the first reason
• why we can have confidence that God can answer Paul’s prayer
His infinite power
The second reason is that this power is already working in us
• To him who can do, by the power that works in us
The Holy Spirit who is so powerful is already working in us.

• He is there.
We already have, today, through him
• everything we need to grow,
• to be a more and more suitable dwelling place for the King of Kings,
• for our character to be transformed into the image of Christ.
• To make us know the love of Christ
The Holy Spirit is already there with us.
• This same Holy Spirit who was at work at creation
• This same Spirit who raised Christ and seated him at the right hand of
God the Father in the heavenly places!
The Holy Spirit is with us
Finally one last reason,
• if you needed one last
• to have confidence that God will answer such a prayer
It is that in doing so: God will be glorified
• God will be glorified
o in our eyes
o and through us.
Our God wants to be glorified,
• and his glory
• and our spiritual happiness
o are linked.
God delights in transforming us for his glory,
• God delights in making us know his immense love.
Let me finish by quoting Richard Coekin again:
I read
Often, we are tempted to think that God wants good for us, that he wishes
us the best, but that he cannot really change things. We are therefore

reluctant to pray with confidence. But when we ask for things that will
advance his plan to unite all things under Christ, including helping us
become a proper dwelling place for his Spirit and to know the unknowable
love of Christ, we must remember to whom we are speaking. God is willing
and able to do for us and in us immeasurably more than we can imagine,
because he loves his church with an infinitely gigantic love. And the more
we experience his patient and transforming love, the more we will joyfully
cry out with Paul:
And I would like to invite you to stand now and read this doxology
together
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to him be glory in
the church [and] in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.