Well, good morning, everyone. You are about to hear an imperfect sermon preached by an imperfect pastor. And yet, God's perfect Holy Spirit is going to apply God's perfect Word to our lives. This great mystery is going to happen that God is going to work through an imperfect vessel in our lives. Do you expect God to move in your heart today? Let's pray and ask for His help. God has designed it this way. He's given us this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to him and not to us. Amen? So let's pray. God, we thank you and praise you for your perfect word and for your perfect Holy Spirit. We thank you and praise you that we have this time in your word. Lord, I confess my own weakness and that nothing good will come in these moments apart from the work of your Holy Spirit. And so we ask for that now, we pray for that in the name of Jesus. We pray that you would work in our hearts to grow and strengthen our faith. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, this past week, my son had to give a report at school. on Charles Finney, he had to give a presentation and so he began his presentation talking about the first Great Awakening and then he started talking about the second Great Awakening and Charles Finney and then at the end, the teacher opens up for questions to the class and one student raised their hand and asked, so did all the second graders get saved? They heard the first grade awakening and the second grade awakening and so they wanted to know, did all the second graders become Christians? And so he answered graciously and said, no, God did this great work and many people became Christians of all ages. We wanna see God do another great work like that in our land, amen? Martin Lloyd-Jones reminds us, though, in contrast to Finney, revival is not something that we can manufacture. Lloyd-Jones, he studied revival, he taught about revival, he prayed for revival, he longed for revival, and yet, this is what he says. He says, we persist in thinking that we can set the situation right. So we start a new society, we write a book, we organize a campaign, and we're convinced that we are going to hold back the tide. But we cannot. When the enemy comes in like a flood, it is the Lord who will raise and does raise the banner. The fact of revival proves, I say so clearly again and again, the impotence and smallness of man left to himself. In other words, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. We are totally dependent on God to accomplish the work of God. We labor in the strength that comes from God in the grace of Jesus Christ. You should have turned in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 1. 2, verses 1 through 7, that is our text for today. Throughout history, God usually works, not in extraordinary, but in ordinary means, through ordinary people. Nevertheless, it is still God's great power, His grace, His strength at work, doing His work in this world. Timothy was charged with the task of not just preserving the gospel, but passing it on. This good deposit that was entrusted to him, he is supposed to entrust to other faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And we're gonna see that this requires suffering. There's a cost of discipleship. You've heard of the cost of discipleship, following Christ. But it's also true that there is a cost of disciple-making. Paul is gonna give three pictures of what that looks like, the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. And although Timothy's calling to disciple faithful men to shepherd the church is unique, we all share this mission of making disciples. And so the message for us this morning is this. By grace, endure hardship in the mission of disciple making. By grace, serve Jesus sacrificially as a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. And if there is a key phrase, it's right here. By grace. If you're one of those note takers and you wrote by grace, you should circle that, underline that, and star that. If there's a theme for this message, it's that song that we just sang. Yet not I, but through Christ in me. We're gonna see the confidence, the charge, and the cost of disciple making today. First, our confidence comes from the strength of God's grace. So this first point then is be strengthened by grace. We see this in verse one, look there with me. Paul says to Timothy, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. In order for Timothy to be faithful, to serve faithfully, he must be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. God's grace, is His limitless and undeserved help in our need. So we're saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Ephesians 2, 5, 8, and 9. God rescues sinners who cannot save themselves. We're also sanctified by grace. So we read in Titus 2 that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all men, but that same grace is training us to renounce ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. So God's grace saves, God's grace sanctifies, but here in this text, we see that God's grace strengthens. He says, be strengthened. How? By the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We are strengthened by grace. We're strengthened by grace to endure hardship. So when Paul has his thorn and he prays to God to remove it, what was God's answer? My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Second Corinthians 12, nine. God's grace also strengthens us to serve him. Paul says, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. God's abundant grace gives us all we need to do all He asks. The Reformation doctrine of sola gratia, grace alone, means we are saved by grace from first to last. Every bit of our salvation. We're not saved by grace and then we go on in our own strength. We go on by grace. We're sanctified and strengthened by grace. So Paul's not telling Timothy, hey, you've gotta fulfill this calling in your own strength. Attempting to be strong in ourselves, to serve Jesus in ourselves, that'd be like telling a fish to breathe out of water. Like telling a pig to fly. Like telling an elephant to climb inside of a Volkswagen. came across this story, this couple was on safari and a bull elephant decided to scratch an itch that it had using their car. Okay, if I'm in the car, this is like Jurassic Park, you know, like when the T-Rex comes and is like smacking the car, this would be freaky, right? This doesn't look so bad till you get to this one. And you're like, oh my word. Right? Now the couple was okay, nobody died, but the car was toast. Totally destroyed the hood, popped all four tires, broke the chassis, the whole thing just destroyed by this elephant. But he was happy, he got his itch scratched. It reminds me of a story that happened years ago. My family, my wife and I went to visit my my brother-in-law down in South Carolina and they took us to this place called Holly Wild. And what this place is, is you drive in there with your car and you're allowed to drive around this open field that is full of animals. They had deer and cows and buffalo and zebras and they give you this paper bag full of bread, right? And you feed the animals. Now, they've been trained. Now, you can see us in the bottom picture. We're driving my mother-in-law's Honda Civic. You don't wanna drive a Honda Civic through a field full of cattle. That is not a good vehicle. Well, Roger's in the front seat, my father-in-law, and he turns to the back seat to say something, and his window's open. I'm in the driver's seat, and this cow shoves its head in through the window, and this giant tongue comes out and licks him in the face. So he starts screaming, the girls are screaming in the backseat. I'm laughing, everybody is just, it is hilarious, right? You can see my niece here is feeding a zebra out her window and my sister-in-law had the same experience with the cow coming in the window. The cow wanted in the car, but it was too big. Now, just like it's impossible for an elephant to climb inside of a car, or a cow for that matter, it is impossible for you to serve God or make disciples in your own strength. you must rely on the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the present tense verb here tells us that we need to continually rely on God. We could translate this, be continually strengthened by grace in Christ. Timothy needs daily, ongoing, moment-by-moment empowering that comes from Jesus Christ, not from within himself, but from outside of himself. And so do we. continually relying on God to give you the grace that you need to do all that he asks of you. And that strengthening grace is meant to give Timothy courage, grit, backbone, unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. Our task is too great. The cost is too high to do it in our own strength. But you're not alone. You have God's divine strength. That is your confidence as you serve Christ, as you follow Christ. You have God's grace to strengthen you. Serving Christ is possible, but only by his grace. So Paul's not asking Timothy or asking us to try harder. He's asking us to rely on Him. That's the most foundational truth. Because we're gonna see some hard things, some challenges, and if we think that we've gotta do it in ourselves, we will despair. It's not try harder, it's rely on Him. Now we're strengthened by grace, by relying on Jesus Christ, not ourself, looking to Christ for wisdom, for courage, for direction, for ability, for fruit, for strength in everything. How do you do that? Here's just a few key ways. Through the word, through reading scripture, we find direction and encouragement, comfort, counsel, and so forth. Through prayer, this is how we rely on God. Prayer is saying, God, I can't do this. I need your help. But also through church, through the preaching and the sacraments and the fellowship of believers, these are all ways in which we can be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So our confidence comes from the strength of God's grace. Second, our charge is to make disciples who make disciples. We see this in verse two, look there with me. He says, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, in trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Again, Timothy's job is not simply to preserve, but to pass on the gospel and the sound doctrine that he has heard Paul preaching many times before in front of many witnesses. He must entrust it to faithful men, men of godly character who are trustworthy. And when you hire a babysitter, you're entrusting your children to this person, to their care. You're trusting them for safekeeping, to watch over your children. But you don't just entrust them to anybody, you entrust them to somebody that's reliable. When you entrust somebody with a message, you place the message in their care. and you trust that they're not gonna alter the message and that they're gonna be able to faithfully pass it on, deliver it. Timothy has to find faithful men so that they're not gonna lose or twist or neglect or falsify the truth. They also have to be qualified men. Notice they need to be able to teach others also. So Timothy's gonna pass on this sound doctrine to faithful men, which I believe here is talking about pastors, the elders of the church. They must be men, they must be faithful, have godly character, they must be able to teach, they must be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it, Titus 1.9. These are all qualifications for elders. So even though I think Paul is instructing Timothy here with this mission of establishing shepherds in the church, that mission is unique, there is a principle here that applies to all Christians, this principle of multiplication, we're called to make disciples who will make disciples. I want you to notice the progression from Paul to Timothy to faithful men to others also. You see those? You see those four? We're all, all of us in this room are links in a chain through history. So we could think about Jesus, who taught John, who taught Polycarp, who taught Irenaeus. Or we could talk about Martin Luther, who taught Martin Bucer, who taught Thomas Cranmer, who taught Roland Taylor. From person to person to person to person, all through history. Our mission is to go and make disciples who will go and make disciples. who will go and make disciples and so on and so on. So thinking about this, I don't want to be a cul-de-sac for the gospel. I don't want it to dead end with me. I wanna be one stop along the way. I wanna be a highway for the gospel, not a cul-de-sac. I don't want the gospel to come to me, the word of God to come to me and then go nowhere from that. I wanna pass it on. This is what's happening in this passage. And what is disciple making? It's more than evangelism and conversion. Disciple making begins there, but it doesn't end there. So when Jesus calls us to make disciples, he describes it as baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you. Disciple making is this process of intentionally investing time and effort into a person's spiritual growth. And what are we teaching them? We're teaching them the gospel and God's word. What is the goal? The goal is spiritual growth and multiplication. Growth, we're trying to make mature disciples, but it's not addition, it's multiplication. We want them to mature and then we want them to go and make disciples themselves. So it keeps multiplying. And what's the context? It's relationship. Disciple making is personal. Look, books, online sermons, articles, they all have a role to play. But no distant pastor or speaker or writer can sit down with you and look at you across the table and apply the truth to your specific situation because they don't know you. Disciple-making involves time and effort and personally investing in people. Not hundreds, but a few at a time. Jesus didn't live like a monk. Yes, he withdrew to pray, to get alone with the Lord, but he did not totally withdraw from society. It wasn't just about him and the Lord. Jesus also did not invest in the masses. Yeah, he preached to crowds, but he focused his time investing in the 12. He poured his greatest energy into these few men and then launched them out to change the world in his name and by his grace. We share that same calling to make disciples who will make disciples. That's our mission as a church. Amen, somebody. How do we do that? Well, according to Jesus, it's done by teaching people to obey everything that he commanded. We help them to follow Christ by knowing and living his word. But you gotta connect with people regularly. You gotta find out how are they doing so that you can find out how they need to be built up in their faith. The key is to listen well and listen long. Until you understand what's going on in their life, where do I need to apply the word of God to build them up? Not beat them up, build them up. Do they need comfort, instruction, encouragement, correction? What step of faith might they need to take? What truths or promise from scripture do they need to believe? And the key for successful discipleship is twofold. It's your love for Christ and his word, because if you don't treasure Christ and his word, you're gonna have a hard time helping other people do so. Amen? It's your love for Christ and his word, and it's your love and care for them. That's it. Those are the keys for good disciple making. And it's gonna be costly. Paul helps Timothy and us to see the cost of disciple making. He doesn't hide it from us, he helps us to count the cost. And then act, not in our strength, but in God's strength. So point three then is to learn from the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. There's a lot to learn from these three pictures about following and serving Jesus. And in all of them, there is a strong call to endure hardship for the sake of Christ and his kingdom. Look at verse seven, though. Drop all the way down to verse seven. Paul says, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. So let's think over these three metaphors for a few minutes, okay? First, the soldier. Look at verses three and four. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. The soldier is called to self-sacrifice and to single-minded devotion. Notice that the very first thing that Paul says after telling Timothy that he needs to pass on the truth to other people who are gonna pass it on, after we see this principle of making disciples, the very first thing he says to him is share in suffering. It's gonna be hard. And one of the costs of following Christ and making disciples is opposition for living and sharing your faith. This should not come as a surprise. Paul is writing this in prison awaiting his execution for doing exactly this. He's not in prison because he was a Christian. He's in prison because he wouldn't shut his mouth about Jesus. He kept making disciples and making disciples and passing on the faith and that's where it landed him. Or we could talk about Jack Phillips, the baker who would not bake a cake in support of homosexual weddings. As Christians, we're not going to lie in order to support someone in a delusion. If you intend to live your faith faithfully, you will be persecuted. As Christians, we are gonna share the good news with our coworkers and our neighbors, even if it costs us a job or a friendship. As Christians, we're going to suffer. A good soldier knows their mission and they're prepared to suffer even to die. Comfort and ease is not the soldier's life. It is a life of courage and self-sacrifice and risk for the sake of others. So too the Christian's life in serving Christ and making disciples. Notice too then that the soldier doesn't get entangled in civilian pursuits. He has one aim, pleasing his commanding officer. As a Christian soldier, You have one aim, pleasing the Lord with single-minded devotion. That's your aim. Now that does not mean that you withdraw from all the affairs of everyday life. You can't. But it does mean, notice the word, you should not be entangled in them. In World War I, barbed wire was used as a defensive measure with deadly effect. The enemy would lay out lines of barbed wire in order to slow troops advance. Soldiers would have to cut their way through the wires before they could move on. Oftentimes, they would be gunned down in the process. Now, they tried to bomb it, but they found that even bombing it wouldn't destroy the barbed wire. Actually, it would just make it worse, tangling it up even further. If a man got snared in it, the people who tried to rescue him would be shot. It was a terrible, terrible business. Our enemy has laid out barbed wire to entangle you and hinder your advance in the faith and the advance of the gospel. Things like entertainment and social media and pornography, things like money and retirement, Things like sports and politics. What you didn't notice, some of the devil's entanglements are sinful. But many are not wrong in and of themselves. He doesn't care so long as he can entangle you in them. We live in an age of pleasing distractions and time wasters. We are amusing ourselves to death with our devices. When the stuff of this life hinders our service to Christ, we have become entangled. The cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of this life so easily distract us. In fact, they choke us to death and make us unfruitful. We must avoid being entangled. So what sins pose the greatest threat to you? But I want you to consider not just the sins, but also the things that are not wrong in and of themselves, that are your biggest distractions, the temptation to hinder you. What priorities have to change in your life to serve Christ with single-minded devotion? I want you to think that over. Here's what I know is true. Every single one of us in this room should have answers to those questions. There isn't a person in this room who can say, no, I think I'm good. I think I've got this. You don't got this. And you definitely don't got this if you think you got this. Amen? During the Second World War, people would say to each other, don't you know there's a war on? That was an expression that they used commonly. There's a war on. That was a phrase that was used to encourage any self-denial or sacrifice. It was a way of saying, you know what, I'm gonna forego this activity, or that comfort for the war effort. Beloved, you are in a spiritual war. This is not peacetime. Not yet. That will come in heaven when all of our enemies are defeated and we will finally be able to lay down our arms. And don't we long for that day? But that's not today. Right now we're in a war against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and being a good soldier of Jesus Christ means avoiding whatever might entangle you so that you can serve Christ with single-minded devotion no matter the cost. That pleases him. We must fight the good fight, ready to contend for the faith wherever and whenever necessary. Now, we're not just in a war, though. We're also in a race. We're not just like soldiers, we're also like athletes. So look at verse five. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. Like athletes, we endure the hardship of self-discipline and perseverance. Now, the Bible often compares the Christian life to that of an athlete or a race. Not that we're competing against each other. Not in that sense. But, in the sense of strenuous self-discipline, that's 1 Corinthians 9, 24 through 27. Or, in the sense of laying aside everything that hinders you from running, Hebrews 12, one and two. But here, in the sense of competing by the rules. In no sport, ancient or modern, does an athlete just get up and give a random display of strength and skill? That's not a thing. Not even this lady in the Olympics from Australia who embarrassed herself by rolling around on the floor to breakdance. The reason that was so bad is because there are rules to the sport. And that's what allowed us to evaluate her performance. Every sport has its rules for the game. What's out of bounds? What's a foul? What gets you a penalty? How do you score? How do you score points? And there are rules for training as well. The point here is that no athlete is gonna be crowned unless they compete according to the rules. This is literally, you must compete lawfully. Now, we're not saved by keeping the law, but we do use it to guide our lives. Paul doesn't specify what the rules are, but it's certainly obedience to God and his word. In serving Christ, then, we must be found faithful. And in the context of this text, one of the rules is being willing to suffer hardship, verse three. One of the rules involves self-denial. Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. I want you to notice, though, that the suffering is not suffering for wrongdoing. There's no honor or reward in that. It's suffering for doing right, for faithful obedience. When you endure suffering for doing good, that's a gracious thing in God's sight, 1 Peter 2, 20 to 22. This helps us to see the implication of competing lawfully to be crowned. We're not simply running the race in any manner that we choose. We must run in the manner that God requires, and that is holiness. So we as Christians, we're not gonna cut corners in business for financial gain. We're gonna live with integrity even if our boss wants us to cheat, even if it costs us our job. As a Christian pharmacist, I would not dispense medications that would cause abortions, even though it cost me getting cussed out and yelled at by angry boyfriends. And in another case, it cost me my job. As Christians, we will not allow our rhetoric to match that of unbelievers. We will not stoop to that level. We are not allowed to play dirty as much as you might want to. The rhetoric is toxic in our nation, amen? You don't get to participate. You must compete by the rules. You must be holy as God is holy. Athletes are disciplined in training to improve their strength and skills in their sport. There are spiritual disciplines that strengthen us for spiritual fitness. Are you practicing the spiritual disciplines of Bible reading and prayer and worship and fasting and serving and giving? Athletes also compete. Notice this, it's compete according to the rules. The whole purpose of training is to play the game. In other words, Christian, you have a race marked out for you and you must run it. We don't just train and train and train and train. We get in the game. God's created all kinds of good works for each and every one of you. He set a race, he's marked a race, a course for you and you must run it. You must compete in the game. using the gifts to do the works that he has prepared for you in his strength. And at the end of your race, which is when you die, the finish line is heaven. Amen? At the end of your race, there is a crown, an imperishable wreath waiting for you, a glorious reward. When it comes to disciple making, this means endurance. This metaphor, whether it's our children or other people that we are discipling, disciple making is a marathon, it's not a sprint. It takes investing time in relationship. Opening up the word, patiently teaching, encouraging people in the faith. So like an athlete, we must compete according to the rules, running our race so that we finish strong. God is looking for strong finishers. Third, the farmer. Look at verse six. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. The hardship that a farmer endures is strenuous toil and patient trust. The picture of a farmer then continues this theme of reward and the need for sacrifice by calling him a hardworking farmer. And one cost then of the Christian life and of disciple making is diligence. So if athletes have to play fair, Farmers have to work hard. There is real toil and struggle and striving and work in the Christian life to be a faithful Christian. Farmers, they have to till the ground, they have to pick rock, do all of this work to prepare the soil, and then they have to plant the seed and then they have to sow or pull the weeds and water the ground and then there's the harvest time, they've gotta pull in all the crop and then they've gotta prepare the crop after they harvest it so that it's ready. There's all this hard work as a farmer. It's part of being a Christian. Know this does not mean that you earn your salvation, it's a gift of grace. I'll say it again, just to be clear. You receive your salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But working hard to serve Christ is one of the fruits of your salvation. But even that is a gift of grace. God is the one who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now the first share of the crops, that goes to the hardworking farmer. Lazy people make bad farmers. The Proverbs makes this clear. They sleep when they should be harvesting, they don't plow when they should, they allow their fields to get overgrown. Hard work, diligence, it's absolutely necessary for good farming and a good harvest, but it's not sufficient. Farmers are dependent on the weather, the rains and the sun for the plants to grow. So hard work is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for harvest. The farmer labors, but he recognizes his limits. For all of his hard work and planning, the farmer cannot make his crops grow. He must trust God and pray for rain and for growth. And likewise, we also must depend fully on God. Paul applies the same metaphor to our disciple making saying that, We plant and we water, but only God can give the growth, 1 Corinthians 3, 5 through 9. Though farmers work hard, then they also must wait patiently, James 5, 7. Farmers do not plant on Monday and harvest on Tuesday. It takes time. The trouble is is that we live in a fast food society. Now farming is about raising food, right? But we live in a fast food society. So we've got drive-through like almost everything you can imagine. We've got drive-through food. We've got drive-through banking. We've got drive-through pharmacy. We've even got drive-through weddings. We're a drive-through society. The problem is is that we expect our disciple making to run with the same speed and convenience. And that's not how it works. Like farming, disciple making takes time. It's not one conversation, but many. It's not one meeting to study God's word, but many. It's not offering one prayer for their growth, but many. And like crops, we don't see the progress quickly. It can take months to see growth and the fruit in a person's life. But then there is the harvest. Our role is faithfulness. It just means hard work and relying on God in prayer, waiting on God to work. The point is, is if we continue in our spiritual labors, one day we will reap a harvest. So we work hard, but we wait patiently, trusting the Lord. In sowing and reaping, in nurturing and cultivating faith, so that people aren't just converted, but become fruit-bearing disciples, it all takes time and effort. Are you weary in that? Remember, the harvest is coming. There's always a delay. But remember, in due season you will reap if you do not give up. One last comment on farming. It's seasonal. I was thinking about that this week. God brings people into your life to disciple deeply for a season. And then God moves them on and brings other people into your life to disciple. And there is a cost in that as well. A cost that must be paid. Because it's hard to send people out after investing in them so deeply. Whether it's your own children when they leave the home, or a college student that you invest in for four years and then you watch them go, or a dear friend that you've known for a long time and you see them leave. There's a cost to that. So here too we must trust God and lean on his grace to strengthen us. Each of these three metaphors highlights an aspect of endurance in the face of hardship. Every one of them gives us a unique picture of what's required to serve Christ and make disciples. The single-minded devotion of the soldier at war, the faithful discipline of the athlete in competition, and the hardworking diligence of the farmer in the field. Paul says, think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. And this is where I want to conclude. I think this is here so that we will think over how these things apply to our own lives. Because as you go from here today, I want you to leave thinking over these things, thinking over what does it mean for me to serve Jesus like a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer in this season of my life, in this place, with these people, wherever you are. Think it over. And the call to persevere and pass on the faith is pretty basic, but Paul is calling us, I think, to count the cost. And above all, I want you to be thinking over the need to be strengthened by grace. It is not in your strength but only by God's grace that we will endure hardship in following Christ and passing on the faith. Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you and we praise you this morning for the grace that we have in Christ Jesus, every one of us. All who are in Christ have this grace and we thank you for it, God. We ask that you would strengthen us by your grace for faithful service where you have placed us. We ask and pray, God, where we're weary that you would give us renewed energy, where we're tempted to cut corners that you would give us faithfulness, and where we're fearful in the fight that you would give us courage. God, would you teach us to rely on you and not on ourselves? God, bring these truths to bear, to bear fruit in our lives. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.