Passing on the Faith

Well, let's grab our Bibles and let's go back to 2 Timothy as we're going through 2 Timothy this morning. And we're coming toward the middle last part of 2 Timothy. Paul is incarcerated in a Roman prison. He knows that his execution is imminent and he's writing these words to Timothy to, in effect, beautify the bride of Christ. He's giving instructions on the form and the fashion of the local church who is Christ's bride.

And so we learn lots of practical things about local church life from these books. Today we come to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 10 and 11. He's already been writing in chapter 3 about the vileness and the wickedness of false teachers. Other parts of the Scriptures call them wolves, even savage wolves. And now he's going to turn and say, but Timothy, that's not who you are.

You're different. Verses 10 and 11, 2 Timothy chapter 3, Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions and sufferings such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra. What persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord rescued me. I'm entitled to this passing on the faith. Again, Paul is writing from a Roman prison cell.

He knows he doesn't have much longer to live. And it's as if you can see Paul reaching his arm out side of that prison down to Ephesus. That's where Timothy's pastoring and handing the baton off to Timothy, because he knows Timothy's fixing to take up the mantle and continue on in this great work. Who passed the baton to you? Who influenced you to carry on in the faith?

And who are you passing the baton on to today? Certainly we should think about our children in this, making sure that our children carry on in the faith, and even our grandchildren and great grandchildren. And then of course our brothers and sisters and our fellow sojourners in our local church.

We have responsibility there. There could be others, but you can wrap it up there as far as what the Bible says is your responsibility. That is to those to whom you want to pass on the faith and carry it on. Now here we have the uniqueness of Paul the Apostle, who wrote much of the New Testament, and Timothy his understudy, his disciple that he's leaving in charge at least of the church in Ephesus. So that's unique, but nevertheless the principle Paul brings out here of passing on the faith is foundational. And we all have a responsibility there. Now listen well, you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and perhaps the Lord will say, your pastor taught you the best he knew how to.

He structured your church so that you would have the kind of organization where you could mentor, encourage, model, disciple one another. Did you pass on the faith? Did you do it? What I find is a lot of you are indeed doing it and you don't even recognize it. And that's what's beautiful about it sometimes is it's what you are. It's not just something you do. It is both. But it is something we are and it's something we do.

Let's look at this together. Let's look at first of all, personal discipleship. That's something he points out here to Timothy is that my personal discipleship of you, Timothy is foundational to what you are and who you are and how you're going to carry this baton forward as I'm passing it on to you. He says in verse 10, he said, Now you followed my teaching. Now the contrast against here is to the false teachers who were following every other teaching, but Paul's teaching, i.e. but true doctrine and true teaching.

So he's wanting to form a real contrast. He's described in the earlier verses of this chapter the vices, the wickedness, the character traits or lack of character you could say of the false teachers and the rebels and those who would try to undermine the faith. And now he says, But now Timothy, you are in sharp contrast to that. You've been well discipled by myself and you're on the right track in the truth. He uses those words, Now you followed my teaching.

The idea of follow there is to follow alongside. He's saying, Timothy, for many years we have walked lockstep together. Our lives from the core of our being to the expression of our outer conduct has been radically different from the men who are only of this world and the men who follow only after this world. So Paul led, he discipled, he taught Timothy, and Timothy proved to be a trusted, devoted follower of Paul.

I remember I had a friend many years ago in ministry and he had a little conference he used to do, a little weekend seminar you could say. And the seminar was entitled, You Follow Jesus by Following Men. And it's true, God has ordained that young ladies should find godly older ladies and be mentored by them and follow them and by following those older ladies they're actually following Christ.

And young men should find godly older men and by following those men they learn to follow Christ. Now Paul's not setting himself up as perfect here, but he's saying, You know that was the mark of my life to be a devoted follower of Christ and now you are following on after that. But Paul again knows his time is not long. He will not that much longer be able to mentor and lead Timothy.

And Timothy being his longest and I believe most trusted associate he wants to make sure Timothy stays the course. So he gives Timothy nine particulars you might call them. Nine parts of this Christian walk and in this case a pastor, our church leaders walk. That he wants Timothy to remember he has been living those out and now Timothy keep on living these out in your life. Timothy not only followed alongside Paul in these nine particulars of serving Christ, he followed in these nine particulars. It wasn't that Paul was living them and Timothy was just tagging. Timothy joined with Paul and they embodied them together and walked these truths out together. He followed in them, he embraced them, he became convinced of them and then he lived these out. First he heard them from Paul, he saw them modeled or emulated in Paul's life and ministry and then he embraced them and incorporated them in his own life and ministry. So passing on the faith, if we're gonna pass on the faith, and by the way, could I say this loud and clear this morning, that if churches had effectively passed along the faith to the next generation and the next generation in this country of ours, we would not have the wild, weird, bizarre stuff going on in this country that we're seeing going on today.

There would be no debate about killing babies in the womb. All this is because the churches have not passed on the faith. We've lost some generations. And our goal at Grace Life Church of the shows is to reestablish the standard, to shine the light bright again and call us back to the truths of God. But in this context, what Paul is saying is, Timothy, I taught you and I modeled these things, then you begin to embrace them and teach them and model them.

Now, Timothy, keep on going. Now, just for practical application here, I wanna talk about three key areas of personal discipleship that must occur in the church. The first one would be, A, leadership development. If we're gonna have folks who can lead in the children's department, if we're gonna have folks who can lead in the nursery area, if we're gonna have folks who can lead in helping us co-labor with our parents to reach and disciple our young people, our teenagers, our college folks, if we're gonna have new leaders who can help lead the next generation of small groups so that church members can love and bond and encourage each other, there's gotta be leadership development. And leadership development greatly depends on personal discipleship. Watching that leader as they model how they pray for their class or as they model how they share their faith or as they model how they treat their husbands or their wives. Teaching's essential and nothing's more important than the foundation of the preaching of the Word, but as we learn from the foundation of preaching, then we live it out and personally help one another live it out. That's what the church body is for. You say, you coming to hear me yell at you every week is more than just, okay, I can check that off like it's some sort of Catholic sacrament. No, this is to the end of your personal ministries.

And that's why we have small groups and I'm getting way ahead of myself because that one's coming. But in leadership development, we see the example, the illustration of personal discipleship in Jesus and his 12 disciples. When Luke was writing the book of Acts, he refers back to the gospel he wrote. And he says in Acts 1, 1, the first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Luke says, I've been with this Lord and Savior.

I fought along with him and I learned a lot from what he did and from what he taught. Modeling, personal discipleship, so foundational there. And in Mark 3, 14, the Bible says, Jesus appointed these 12 that they might be with him. They needed to see him teach. They needed to watch him pray.

They needed to watch him show humility and meekness when offended, but also stand bold and strong and rebuke the Pharisees. They learned from being with him, personal discipleship. And of course, we have Paul again with Timothy here, with Titus, with Silas, with Barnabas, with Aquila and Priscilla and with many others. They literally traveled with Paul and learned by being with him. And now Paul's gonna say to Timothy, or has said already, we've already studied through it in 2 Timothy 2, 2, the things which you've heard from me, I discipled you, that is Timothy, now in the presence of many witnesses and trust these two faithful men.

Now take what I gave you. Now you find the men who are the next leaders. I think this is probably the first pastors training institute in a local church. These are key men that will probably go on to be preachers. Now, Timothy, get them in a small group and train them and mentor and model this to them. Well, a second key area, not only for leadership training, but for every member discipleship. And of course, that's where we talk about our small groups and the wheel illustration is something we look to to kinda help us understand and keep in our minds the areas we wanna be active in. And of course, you can see the upper right hand spoke every member ministry through small groups. That is the arena where we can be involved in some form of personal discipleship.

One to another. And again, it doesn't have to be this real structured thing. Just be real, live for Christ, reach the lost, help the saved to be equipped and grow and the others in the class will follow along with those who are further down the road. And we see this principle right at the very beginning of the book of Acts. In Acts chapter two, verse 46, as 3,000 people have been saved and they did meet in Solomon's portico as a congregation, but also notice what it says there.

They were breaking bread from house to house. That's small groups getting together in smaller units and caring for each other and praying for one another and ministering one to another. From the very beginning, we see a small group structure in God's local church. It's in small groups that bonding begins. There's a transparency that can develop and brother with brother and sister with sister in Christ can start feeling the openness to share burdens and needs and weaknesses as well as strengths and things that God's blessed them with. So bonding and transparency and that builds an environment for modeling true discipleship one to another. And then thirdly, another arena, not only for leadership development and not only for every member discipleship, but also home life discipleship. In our homes, what a place to make sure that you are personally discipling those in your family. Now again, I've said it several times.

Forgive my voice, I've been out in the weeds and the bushes and the dust and the dirt and it makes my throat close up. But anyway, in our homes, we want to make sure our children are picking up on the things of Christ because surely, surely you haven't been a part of Grace Life very long and you think that my home can be just like the average secular home as long as I get my kids to a good church like Grace Life Church. Surely you don't think that. My point is with all of our flaws and failures and weaknesses and inconsistencies, we need to make sure our children and our spouses know it's real at home. We go by the book at home. God's Word is our standard at home and therefore we're modeling before our children what we call home life discipleship. Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 says, These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Notice, not a formal cold classroom in the household.

I'm not saying you should never have a class and a study, I'm not condemning that, but more than anything, your children need to see in the everyday parts of life it's real, it's real. I could, my daughters are not here, they've already taken off and I'm gonna take off to where they are later today. And if they were here, they could very quickly list for you my weaknesses and my failures in my home. But if there's something that God let me hit on that I believe He used in their lives, it was that I tried to humble myself before them and ask their forgiveness when I blew it. And I would always say, you see, Daddy needs a Savior too. That's home life discipleship.

That's modeling that we all serve a real Savior because we all need a real Savior. And contrary to what the world and Satan and your flesh may tell you, that kind of humility strengthens your family's love and respect for you, it doesn't diminish it. So in whatever ways, and I mean this honestly, I think many of our younger families are doing a lot better job than Pam and I did. And praise the Lord for that. I think my children are doing a better job than I did.

And I hope my children's children do a better job than they did. But that's a place for discipleship, personal discipleship. All right, let's go to number two. I'm gonna get through this one way or the other, just part of my discipleship, the particulars of discipleship. So Paul's now gonna list nine items, nine particulars that in effect he's saying, I taught you these, you embraced them and we've lived them together, Timothy.

And here's the point, so don't stop now. Keep on going with what you learned from your father in the ministry. The first one he mentions is, now you followed my teachings, teachings. And literally there's a definite pronoun here, my teachings. And of course he's saying that's in contrast to all this nutty, crazy stuff, Timothy, that the world teaches. The Greek and Roman philosophers teach, the Gnostics teach or the Judaizers teach. No, no, Timothy, you've been discipled in the truth. I've given you the true doctrines. I think this must include preaching and teaching settings where Timothy literally sat under the voice of Paul as he preached and taught. And this is a foundational thing.

I'll give you a quick illustration from my past. When I was newly converted and a young minister, discipleship groups were very popular. They don't seem to be popular anymore, but there was some Christian ministries and their whole purpose was to form men discipling men and women discipling women. And there was good and there was bad. The good was churches were very weak and anemic and there were not too many real, mature disciples in churches. So these groups started up to say, we'll get this done.

But that was also their downfall. They separated their ministry from the local church. And as I studied the Bible, I thought, this is wrong. The church should be doing this. This should be a part of the ministry of a local church. And thus came our accountability notebook that we used for many years.

Some of you still use it. Just a tool to help us one on one disciple one another. You see, true disciples cannot be properly made or matured without being in a local church and primarily under the spirit and powered preaching of the word of God. You can't just meet on Thursday and quote the Bible to one another and do a Bible study as good as that is, separate from the totality of local church life and primarily the preaching of the word in the local church. But these groups had, I think with good intentions, kind of left that out. It was kind of like you can be a real disciple and not really be centered in a local church. You and I exist to say, no, the biblical model is right.

It's wise and it's best. This should be done in local churches for the glory of God. One key factor there. If you're in a discipleship group outside of the authority of your local church, and shall I say it, some of the worst examples out there are some of these ladies discipleship groups in the community. Let me ask you something. You're sitting under some lady in some discipleship group meeting at some restaurant or some home. Who's overseeing that lady? Who's making sure she's living right, has godly conduct and believes true and sound doctrine?

You see, you're sheltered under your elders. God's ordained that. But when you just get Joe Blow or Jane Blow out there and y'all get together, I'm not saying it's all evil. I'm saying though, it is dangerous. I don't know if any of our ladies do that or not. And I'm not saying you should quit tomorrow.

Wait a month and then quit. But if I was in any kind of group, I'd say, what godly proven local church elder body is overseeing this study? So I know I can trust being in here.

Did you hear that? What godly proven elder body is overseeing this ministry? There's no ministry in the New Testament that's not under the authority of a local church. You show it to me and I'll get up here and change my tone. I'm chasing a rabbit and I've got to get off.

I don't have the voice to chase rabbits this morning. Timothy, the first particularly, you followed my teaching, my doctrine, and it's changed your life. One thing I would point out, and there was some good men in these discipleship ministries. And by the way, I thank God for the good that was done. But you know, I thank all of those that were, Dr. Seal, you remember that were real popular when we were in our early 20s. They don't exist anymore.

But you know what? There's local churches everywhere. Amen. All of the ministries come and go. Real discipleship needs to be anchored in the local church because God's going to have his local churches until he returns. That's his ordained means. Now, secondly, he mentions conduct.

We got to hurry. He's saying, Timothy, you know I lived out what I taught. Paul's not saying imperfection, but he's saying from a heart conviction that the doctrine, the teaching I taught was true.

And from a heart embracing, adoring, and treasuring of the doctrine I taught, you know my conduct exemplified my teaching. In 1 Corinthians 2, 4, he writes to the Corinthian church. And by the way, the Corinthians were constantly plagued by false teachers creeping in and teaching. Well, usually they'd put a spin on Paul's doctrine. They'd put a twist on the things Paul taught and try to get the Corinthians off track. And so Paul would write to the Corinthians and try to get them back on track.

And here's one of the ways he did that. My message and my teaching, i.e. in contrast to the nonsense you've been taught by some people who crept in while I was out of town, my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom. You see, in the ancient Greek culture, rhetoric and oratory skills were held in high premium.

I mean, if you could dazzle with your words and with your charisma, people would just swoon to you as a great leader. But Paul said, I made sure when I came to you, I wouldn't slick, sharp, polished or anything else. But he said, I'll tell you what I did have. Look at the rest of that verse. But in demonstration of the spirit and power, here's what Paul's saying. Your lives have been changed. Your heart's been changed. The way you treat your spouse has been changed.

The morals of your life is being cleaned up. Here's what Paul's saying. When I came to you with the true doctrine, your conduct changed. You didn't just get somebody to wow you intellectually and enthrall your emotions. You changed because my message has the power of God in it.

What's my point? Timothy, you knew my conduct. Timothy, you know your conduct. You know God's truth has changed us.

And though we're not perfect, we've tried to live this thing out. The Holy Spirit that works in our hearts and convinces us of the truth of God's word is also the Holy Spirit that convicts us and guides us to a new kind of living that exemplifies the doctrine we embrace. The new birth creates a new heart, a new heart with new affections and a new heart with new affections and a brand new purpose of life.

And that creates a new conduct. Nothing more than I remember so distinctly in my life. I was converted, driving my car back to college one Sunday night. And you know what changed in my life?

I started going to church. Now, why did that change? Because I changed. Things just started changing. My friends begin to change. I didn't make a list, okay, I'm gonna change all these things to show everybody my conduct's different. No, my affections changed.

The things I longed for and looked to and were mostly drawn to changed. Well, not only my teaching, Timothy, you've received it, you know it, and you're walking in it. Not only our conduct and our lives are different than the world and different than they used to be, thirdly, Timothy, our purpose has changed. Is that the third one?

Yeah, the third one. Romans 8, 28's a key to this. Romans 8, 28 reminds us, God calls us all things to work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

That's what happens. When God changes us, we go from living for our purpose with God tacked onto that. You know, that's the Baptist way over the last hundred years or so. You keep your life but say a sinner's prayer so you can tack on a free journey to heaven when you die.

Uh-uh. No, your purpose changes. This is God's purpose. What happened was God's purpose became Paul's purpose. And Paul discipling Timothy, it became Timothy's purpose. And Paul's saying, Timothy, you've been walking this out with me for years and I'm about to be gone, but Timothy, you can't quit. The purpose we're about is right. Don't shrink back. And in my letter years of ministry here with you, now I'm not planning on hanging up anytime soon, but I don't know that I got 40 something years left either. But here's what I'm gonna say to you, Grace Life Church, the purpose I've laid out for you from the book is right. It's true.

We can't shrink back now. That's what Paul's telling Timothy. Now we may polish it and adjust it as we learn more deeply the Word.

We're not gonna do it based on what the culture says we ought to be, but we're gonna base it on the book. But the purpose primarily remains the same. The word purpose here that Paul uses is the word that means to set forth or place one thing in front of you. Philippians 3 13 says, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do.

Paul didn't say these 12 things I do, he said there's one thing I do. Yes, I'm gonna raise my children. I'm gonna make sure they get a good education. By the way, we need to talk about that.

Not this morning. But the next 20 years, the true church is gonna have to think about where we send our kids to be instructed and trained. All I can say is thank God for teachers in our schools that love Jesus and love the truth.

They're the only salvation we've got right now because the federal government's not gonna relent on their passion to teach our children filth and ungodliness. We're gonna raise our children. We're gonna have to work at our jobs. We do a lot of things, but back of all of that needs to be one thing. We exist that God might be glorified and primarily through his churches. And I'll monitor and sharpen and decrease or increase all this other stuff that makes up my life to make sure that one purpose is maintained. And that's just not for us preachers, that's for us.

You have a different role, but that's us. Paul's strategy for living out this purpose was very clear. Well, let me back up Ephesians 3 21 again. If there's a summary of what I would call biblical theology and it's not a complete one, I understand that, but it's about as complete as any one verse can get, I think. And a summary of what our purpose should be, Ephesians 3 21, and a summary of what Paul's purpose was, Ephesians 3 21.

To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. In other words, this lasts for all the time and this lasts for all eternity. Is your driving purpose something that lasts for time and eternity? Why would you do that if it's not? Why would you do that? Why would you sit under my preaching and give your life to something that doesn't matter when you leave this earth? Why would you do that? I'm not saying you're doing that.

I'm just saying if you are, why would you do that? But now Paul's strategy was very simple. Galatians 1 16, that I might preach him among the Gentiles Paul tried to preaching one of the Jews, God closed that door and then God sent him to the Gentiles. Preach, preaching the word, i.e. preaching the gospel. Colossians 1 28 and 29, and we proclaim him admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom that we might present every man complete in Christ and for this purpose also I labor.

This purpose, striving according to his power which mightily works with me. But pastor, I'm not called to preach. Yes, but you're called to the church and there's a junior boy you can help disciple. There's a young girl you can help influence. There's a man in your class that's a newer Christian that you can love and encourage and model a little bit for and then we're all together in this purpose. Can I get amen there?

Find your role and keep on keeping on. Don't quit on me. I'm not saying any of you have.

I'm just saying don't. That's what Paul's telling Timothy. He's not rebuking Timothy for not doing it. He's just saying, Timothy, just keep on doing it. Well, this was Paul's purpose. This was Timothy's purpose. And it's the purpose of every biblical pastor and every true Christian since this time. Well, the next one, faith.

Is that the fourth particular? The fourth particular aspect, the faith. Now, this could be faithfulness, but that's not what I think it means in this context.

I think it means one's personal faith, one's personal trust in Christ. He's saying, Timothy, you saw my personal faith and trust in Christ, my love for him, my treasuring of him. And Timothy, I've seen your personal faith in Christ, your love for him and your treasuring of him. And Timothy, likewise, let's continue on being those kind of men. And boy, this reminds me afresh that if a man's gonna be a pastor, he first must be converted.

He must have experienced the new birth. He must be born again. We got too many guys in our pulpits who are maybe loving in their personality or kind in their demeanor or caring of people naturally, but that doesn't matter if they're not born again, if they're not saved.

Then patience, patience to wait when nothing's happening. Oh my goodness, how many times did Paul preach and nothing happened? How many times did Paul preach and the church would drift away from sound doctrine? He tried to get them back on patience. He said, Timothy, you've seen my patience. You know, in our earlier years of reforming this church, not much was happening.

I remember being at a board meeting with the Anchor and Truth Board and the board member saying, pastor, nothing's happening. And I'd be discouraged. I said, no, it didn't look like much is happening, but we didn't quit. We didn't quit. And today we've got more people wanting to connect with us, contact us, minister with us than we can get to. But it took some years of patience.

Mom and Dad, all of your family may not yet know the Lord. Some of them may be way away in Moab, sojourning in a foreign land. We don't quit. Keep on. Believe.

Don't throw in the towel. Patience. And then he says love. It's the word agape. It's that love, I believe, in this context and almost every, not every, but almost every context when agape is used, it means that unique love capacity that comes in us in the new birth.

It's not natural. It's not the kind of love the world understands. It's a unique love. First of all, it gives us a great love for all men.

We have a great love for mankind, a capacity to pity them and feel sorry for them when they do their wicked deeds. But it's also that deep, rich, abiding love for the brethren. 1 Thessalonians 4, 9. Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

What's Paul saying? He said it was in you by God. God the Holy Spirit came and brought this into you, so you really don't have to be taught anything about this. It's there because you're born again.

Now you do have to develop it. You need somebody to model it so you know how to express it better, but it's there if you're God's. That's what keeps us together here at Grace Life Church, because God puts something in me that loves you. And God puts something in you that loves each other here in a unique way, and it's reciprocal. And can I say this to you?

If that's not the glue that's holding us together, we will not be held together. Timothy, you've seen this love in my life, and I've seen it now in your life, and Timothy, keep on walking in it. Then perseverance, perseverance.

Keep pressing forward regardless of the headwinds. Bear up under the load, Timothy. And we've been through this in 1 and 2 Timothy, over and over and over.

He talks about the hardships, the undeminers, the false teachers, the usurpers, et cetera, et cetera. What do you mean, Timothy? You don't quit, you keep on. You saw me keep on going. And matter of fact, Paul's locked in prison awaiting his execution. He's still discipling, Timothy.

He didn't stop. Perseverance. Persecutions means various and sundry oppositions to our faith and practice. Timothy, you saw the persecutions and connected to that in the last one, the ninth one, sufferings. And then he talks about it in verse 11.

Look at it there in verse 11. Persecutions and sufferings such as happen to be at Antioch at Iconium and Lystra. Lystra was Timothy's hometown.

I think he specifically mentions Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra because that was his first missionary journey. It could have been when Timothy met Paul. It could have been when Timothy was converted under Paul's ministry. And so Timothy would have remembered these episodes like when the stoning he endured at Lystra.

Timothy perhaps even saw some of that. Iconium, the Jews poison the minds of the Gentiles. It gets Paul there and a mob of them attacked him and they tried to stone him.

Actually, they didn't stone him at Iconium. And then the one I just mentioned at Lystra, the Jews from Antioch followed him down to Lystra and influenced a mob to attack Paul. Isn't it interesting that mob rule has been around forever?

And that's the way a lot of Baptist churches function. You get a mob together and they vote something in or out, right or on, up and down. Whoever can get the mob together wins. Well, Paul had his mobs. He had a mob at Lystra and they stoned him and they thought he was dead and they dragged him out to the city and left him like a dead dog on the side of the road. But he wasn't dead.

God just provided for him to be, I guess, knocked out so that he didn't then maybe endure the torment of seeing all those stones coming out. He's saying, Timothy, you lived in that area. You saw these things and now you've walked with me in many of these things. So don't let this type of thing startle you, Timothy. And don't let this type of thing stall you. Keep on keeping on. Hold to the teaching. Practice the conduct. Stay focused on the purpose. Walk in that faith of the treasuring and adoring Christ. Have patience and press forth through the persecutions and the sufferings and always have that love and that perseverance.

Now I'll be brief. Roman number three here. God's great rescue. Pastor, if we stay true to the faith in this culture, if we stand on the truth and we're unashamed of it, we might face some tough times. Yes, but our God is the God of great rescues.

He's the God who always comes through. He says in verse 11, middle part, what persecutions I endured. This means I got through them.

I endured them. And out of them all, the Lord rescued me. By God's enabling grace, Paul is saying, I kept serving Christ, kept preaching the gospel. I did it before the persecution and suffering.

I did it during the persecution and suffering. And Timothy, you can too. And actually, Timothy, you have already and you need to keep on doing it. And that phrase, I just wanna camp on that phrase as I close, that phrase in verse 11, out of them all, the Lord rescued or delivered me. The Lord's rescue of Paul, and I think that's what he's getting to. He had to splash that suffering that Timothy most likely witnessed in Iconium and Lystra and Antioch.

He splashed that out there so he'd kinda have a graphic, a vivid memory in Timothy's mind. And then immediately on the backside of that graphic impacting memory, he says, but the Lord rescued me out of them all. As hard as that was, as ugly and awful as that was, God's rescue was greater.

I think that's the point here. Paul's rescue was more awe-inspiring and impacting than the persecution or suffering that was launched against him was. Now think about our Lord. Think about our Lord. What's more powerful, the evil suffering thrust upon our Lord before and during his crucifixion of the great rescue of God the Father raising him from the dead?

Which is more impactful, that he came forth alive, glorified before his Father. You see, the rescues of this life during our service to Christ are powerfully impacting, so much so that they can cause the suffering and pain of serving him in this wicked world to quickly diminish. You need to remember that. When you're going through something because you're trying to stand for your faith and honor the Lord and it's not fun anymore. We talked to a person just recently that in their organization they worked for, they're becoming quite woke and this person wasn't woke enough for them. And they saw the handwriting on the wall.

That's not easy when you spent your whole life with a business or an organization. But God has a rescue plan and they found something much, much better. Well, God opened a much, much better door. God's rescues are so impacting. It makes the heartbreak and the suffering of what you've been through for Christ diminish. In Romans 8 18, Paul says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that's to be revealed to us. And that's talking about the ultimate rescue when we're glorified with him. You ain't seen nothing yet.

You think all this stuff down here is a big deal. It's nothing compared to what's coming, nothing. It's not what Paul says in Romans 8 18, it's not worthy to be compared. Take all the difficulties, suffering, persecutions, toils and trials and just general sufferings if you will, not even necessarily for your faith sometimes, just the heartache of this present life. He said it can't even be compared with the glory.

It's gonna be revealed to us and in us. You can take all the sufferings and persecutions of the most persecuted martyr for Christ, multiply it 1000 times and one second in Christ's presence, one second clothed in his righteousness, one second immersed in his glory. One second immersed in his glory will have a far greater impact than those 1000 lifetimes of suffering. That's what Paul's saying, it's not worthy to be compared. The songwriter said it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Earth's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.

One glance of his dear face, all sorrows will erase, so gladly run the race till we see Christ. Not songwriter, but Paul didn't say it will be worth it all. He said, you can't even compare them.

It's not that one's this woman, this one's pretty good bit higher. You can't even compare the sufferings to the glory. So it's not that it will be worth it all, I'm not saying it's a bad song, brother Tom, okay?

I'm just amplifying. I'm not saying it's not that it will be worth it all, I'm just saying it's not even a fair comparison. It's not even worthy to compare the impact of life's trials with the impact of our glorification. There's nothing to compare.

Two radically different things. I don't know why this came to my mind, but it did, I was thinking on this text and I thought about when Pam and I were in Africa the last time and we had been preaching at a Bible conference for Conrad and Bayway and they had told us you have to go to Victoria Falls. If you're ever in South Africa, can I tell you something? You have to go to Victoria Falls. It's amazing, they took us on a little boat out there and we went to the little island place on the edge of Victoria Falls where David Livingston, the great missionary explorer had stood there and he looked over a vast valley out below that falls and he saw the smoke of a thousand villages and he claimed them for the glory of Christ. Just powerful to be there. Think about the first Christian missionary to ever go to that region of the world.

That's not what I'm talking about. They took us out in that boat and I guess we saw a hundred crocodiles. It's just the amount of living stuff out there is horrifying almost.

I thought if I drop in this water, it's over. I mean there's just, there's stuff everywhere. Warthogs, there was a giant bull elephant just standing out there, just blowing water up in there. It looked like something you'd see at Disneyland.

Don't go to Disney World, but anyways, it looked like something you'd see at Disney World. But one thing that impacted me was over on the bank, probably 150 yards away from us, two female lions had come down and it was pretty just dusty and baring, few little bushes and they kinda were laying down beside two bushes. I thought, boy, I'm glad I'm not over there.

That would not be good. I mean they were intimidating. And then all of a sudden, three or four massive African bull elephants came charging down that bank and those cats ran like their houses on fire. You see, all of your sufferings are little kitty cats compared to the elephant of God's glory that's coming. I mean those cats looked intimidating till the elephant showed up. And our trials and our suffering and our difficulties seemed great. And by the way, the tears, ducks are in there for something, amen? There's tears, there's heartache, but you remember the great elephant bull of God's glory is just coming around the corner and he'll blow all that stuff away. And it won't even be worthy to be compared. You know, now that I see Jesus for this one second, that's just nothing. That just don't even matter. Timothy, I've passed along the faith to you. Now you keep on and just pass it on to others. Even though it'll be tough at times, but God will rescue us out of all the troubles.