Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker - Be Strong - Don't Be Distracted (2 Timothy 2), Part 1

Do you find yourself struggling to walk with God amidst all the pressure that you're facing today? Do you understand what it means to be strong in the grace of God?

Today we'll learn what that looks like and why it's so important. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

We're in the middle of our newest series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, based in the book of 2 Timothy. And before Chip dives in, let me encourage you to use his message notes while you listen. They'll help you get the most out of what you're about to hear.

Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org. At listeners, tap fill in notes. Well, with that, here's Chip for his talk, Be Strong, Don't Be Distracted. The big question, I think, as we open chapter 2, I put on the top of your notes. How can a person remain true to their calling, to their Lord, and to His Word in a hostile, anti-Christian culture while dealing with our own personal inadequacies and problems? It's a long sentence, but I think the parallels in our day are very similar, don't you? I mean, in the world that we're living in, all the chaos, all the uncertainty, vaccine, masks, diseases, economies, emerging countries, nuclear missiles.

I mean, you can stick your head in the sand and stay glued to Netflix or whatever your favorite thing is and try and find a gated community to separate from all that's happening, but if you come up for air, you're living in one of the most historic times in human history. And we've been here before, and God has always taken a portion of His church that's in tune to grasp what's going on, that don't get distracted, that don't get pulled into secondary things, and they step up and they do what followers of Jesus has always done. They live the truth, they share the truth, they love people that are like them, they love people that aren't like them, and they're counter-cultural, and they're counter-cultural usually, unfortunately, inside the church as much as outside the church. Notice at the end of chapter one, he gives a couple illustrations. He names two people and he says, you know what, don't be like them. They drifted under pressure, and then he says, you know that slave when everyone else was afraid, that converted slave, he searched all over Rome, and he found me, and he wasn't concerned what the implications would be, and so he's giving Timothy, he's giving him this truth, and then he says, here's a negative example, here's a positive example, and look at your text. What's the very first word of chapter two? He's put you in the emphatic position. You, Timothy, I've talked about these two, you therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things which you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful people who be able to teach others also. And then he comes back to his theme.

Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. And then he gives, in your notes I talk about three metaphors, and just for the sake of all the English teachers, I understand they're similes, right? When you use like or as, it's a simile. There's a lot of us that didn't know what a simile was, so I said metaphors. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him, and if someone likewise competes as an athlete, he's not crowned as a victor unless he competes according to the rules.

And the hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider, ponder, reflect, that's the idea, what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprisoned. For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen so that they may obtain the salvation for which is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory. And then he goes and talks about this is a trustworthy statement.

Here's what I want to do. The first section here, it's Paul talking to this young pastor about his personal life. After he gets done with his personal life, the second section, he's going to shift and say, Now, this is your responsibility in terms of your teaching and what you do in the church. And so when I went through and I studied this, I thought, Okay, you therefore, I think we skip over the first line, be strong that's in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody remember where that, you know, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might, where that comes up somewhere else?

Yeah, Ephesians. It's about spiritual warfare. See, what he's saying is, Timothy, I just gave you a challenge. I invited you to suffer with me, and the whole world is falling apart around you.

It's illegal to be a Christian. I'm going to get killed, and I'm asking you to follow in my footsteps. And so the first thing isn't buck up, get more committed, make it happen, you can do it.

This isn't a pep talk. This is, therefore, you be strong in the grace, the favor of God that provides supernatural power, that allows you to do what he wants you to do and become who he wants you to become, that is impossible out of your own self-effort. And so I sort of outlined this with, if I was kind of thinking of receiving this, Paul's action plan for Timothy and for us to be strong in difficult times. Number one, make abiding in Christ your number one priority every day. Abiding in Christ, the number one priority.

Not what you do, not what you accomplish. It's John 15 five. If you abide in me, my words abide in you. You bear much fruit. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and prove to be my disciples. A branch can't, right, can't bear fruit in and of itself unless it abides in the vine.

So neither can you unless you abide. All it means is staying connected. Your personal relationship with Jesus, your connection in saying I need you today and so I need fresh manna from your word. I need you today so I'm going to ask and I'm going to sit quietly and listen to you before I rush in today. I'm not going to get up and find out how the stocks are doing and how much I've lost in the Wall Street Journal and I'm not going to see what's said in Facebook and I'm not going to turn on the TV while I'm getting ready. I'm going to pause and recognize there's so many distractions and what happens first in my morning and what happens just before I go to bed are the things that shape my day and shape my sleep.

So first and foremost, my number one priority is to abide in Christ. It means time with God. It means renewing your mind. It means probably having an exact time when you turn this off. It means that it's not in your bedroom.

It means that every time it buzzes that you actually turn off your notices. It means when the kids come around or the grandkids are around or you're with friends, you might even have a fun little thing where there's a little basket and you say, hey, it's great to have you all here. I've put my phone in the basket. Could you guys throw it here?

Could we have genuine uninterrupted time with one another? I don't know if you've gone to any restaurants lately and seen a family sitting around a table in a restaurant and all five people like this. Now, you know what? All I know is in God's infinite wisdom and the creativity He gives human beings, I cannot figure how in the world I can press a button I'm not going to now and say, hey, Siri, who is Nero? And within less than a second, I get Wikipedia is everything on Nero, when he was born, all the rest.

Or, hey, where's the closest coffee shop? Or, hey, that's an amazing and wonderful thing. But if the enemy can't get you to just willfully sin and rebel, he will distract you and occupy your mind with such trivia that you will not abide in Christ.

And is it a bad thing? Of course not. But you're going to learn those three similes or metaphors. One of the key ones is discipline, self-control. And so I think that the application, if there's one verse for me, it's Proverbs 4.23. It's the core of your being.

Watch over your heart with all diligence. For from it flow the issues of life. And your heart is always determined by your diet. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good and the evil man out of the evil treasure. For that which the mouse speaks is that which comes out of the heart. The mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.

Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Just do a little word study on the word mind. Your mental diet, as a man or woman thinks, so you become. Your mental diet will determine who you are. Who you are sitting in this seat today is the combination of the things you've read, the things you've watched, the conversations you've had, and where you think.

And so if you want to change, it's not trying harder or bucking up. Romans 12 2, do not, or literally grammatically, stop allowing this world's system to squeeze you into its mold or conform you, but rather start allowing passive voice, your mind to be renewed, so that your life could demonstrate what the will of God is, that it's good, acceptable, well-pleasing, perfect. And so all I want to say is, I think for Timothy, the first thing is, Timothy, you need God's grace. So seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

And all those things that you're tempted to worry about, He's going to take care of. Second is make personally investing in fat people your number two priority. And some of you who maybe have been in a discipleship background or familiar with the Navigators or Dawson Trotman, that bricklayer who discipled me was greatly influenced by the Navigators.

It's a parachurch ministry that focuses on discipleship. And we learned early on, invest in fat people. And that was not about size or weight.

F was for faithful, A was for available, and T was for teachable. You don't spend your time equally. You spend your time, you help everyone, train a few.

Now, the ones that are inside your house, if they're not fat, you help them become fat. And what I would encourage you here is, is rather than, sometimes we hear about discipleship and we get this idea that I'm going to start doing all these things out there, as opposed to ask, what are the rhythms of your life? Who can you take a walk with and share what's happening in your life? Who becomes a workout partner?

Who are some people that you grab coffee with? I was with a guy that I hadn't seen in about 15 years, and I pastored in a really interesting community called Santa Cruz for 12. And it was probably the second year, and someone invited him to church, and he found out that I like basketball.

I think his wife told him that, thinking maybe he'll come to church. I mean, I was a gym rat. I'm like addicted to basketball.

And I played up until my early 60s until these back operations happened. And he came up right after the service, and I was a young guy there, about 40, and he said, hey, I hear you play basketball. I said, yeah. I said, do you know? He said, yeah, that's my wife.

Great. He said, do you play? I said, yeah. I said, okay, I like to play sometimes. I said, what are you doing two o'clock this afternoon?

He said, nothing. I said, I play every Sunday afternoon. It's how I wind down, and here's my address. I get a great outdoor court. Dave and I started playing basketball every Sunday afternoon with my sons and a few other guys, and it was two on two, three on three. We were soaking wet. And I look back, and I remember laying on the ground soaked with sweat, or when he or I, you know, broken nose, broken ankle. We were very intense. We had lots of fun.

But there was always injuries. And I look now 20 years. He's a businessman. He's discipled his family. The rest of his family has come to Christ.

His whole life was changed, and actually what I needed was a workout, and I needed a friend, and he needed a friend. And I look back, and it was in that very normal time of doing that that he would share about a struggle in his marriage, or he learned about spiritual warfare, or he would say, you know something? I've been listening to you, and I, you know, I just, you know, I grew up going to church now and then. You know, if you put a $5 bill in, you're like doing okay, and like if I failed a God moment, I'd maybe put in a 20. And I started this tithing stuff. He goes, man, I started looking at the numbers. Like, that's a lot of money, Chip.

I said, yeah, it's not yours. Oh, yeah, that's right. And, but all I can tell you is it was a life-on-life journey, and that's what people need. We've sort of created this thing where it's just this little group where you take them just through this study, and yes, all that is a part of it. Timothy, what I want you to do, yes, you have to preach.

Yes, you have to visit people in the hospital. Yes, there's administrative duties, but no matter what, you have to make disciples. You have to look for who are the faithful people. There's always people near your world that are spiritually hungry. There's some spiritually hungry people that aren't even believers, but they're looking, they're asking.

So who are the spiritually hungry people, and how do you invite them into your life? And here's the deal. It's a huge commitment. Because when I said the danger and deception of distractions, we all have a rhythm. Some of your rhythm, and please don't take this, stop doing this or start doing that. You just have a rhythm, like you watch the news every night, or you know what, on Saturdays you watch this football game and that football game, or you're a lady and you always go and do these things, and at some point you have to stop and say, are those rhythms producing the outcome of my life that I want? I was 28 years old, and my entire life changed when I had three kids, was in school, in seminary, and I met with Prof Hendricks, and he rearranged my focus, and I remember writing down the kind of person I wanted to be, the kind of pastor, the kind of dad, the kind of husband, and I literally wrote it down, and he said, if it's not in your schedule, it'll never be in your life, so I put it in my schedule, and when I looked at it, I didn't have time to do anything else.

And I thought, that's impossible. And I remember asking God for help, and we did an experiment in our house. My kids were younger, and we just decided for a couple weeks what would it be like to not turn on the TV during the week.

Well, it was great for my kids, but it was killing me. I mean, you can't go to bed until you've watched the news and heard the monologue, right? When I grew up, my parents would watch the news, Johnny Carson, and then you go to bed, so that means you go to bed at 11 or 1130, and then you get up at 637, whatever. Well, I mean, after like four, five, six nights, my kids are young, hey, we've sung, we've read, we've prayed, we've shot basketball, it's 830. You know, my wife's in early to bedder, I mean like really early to bedder, it's like 9 o'clock, and I'm going, I mean, you can only read so much, right? You know, so, oh, what the heck, I guess I'll go to bed. So I go to bed at 9 or 930, I wake up at 5 or 530. I just bought two hours.

It was like, oh. So I started to do all the things that only I could do early, and then I applied that to kind of my work and said, you know, before I have meetings, like even now, I have a green zone, 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. I don't open my email, I don't talk to people. If there's an emergency and someone texts me, great.

But from 5 to 10, what I know is that's my, that's when I'm going to accomplish the most. I can have meetings and relationships other times. Here's all I'm saying. If you're going to invest in people and you're going to abide in Christ, we feel like we don't have the time. Just all I'm saying is don't, you know, some of you will go, oh, does that mean I can't watch football games?

No, no, no, no. What it means is what if you looked at where your time is going and where your relationships were and said, my first priority is abiding in Christ, and number two is I'm going to personally invest. I'm going to make my life one where I reproduce my life. Face on face, person on person, life on life.

People's lives change when you're with people. Notice then, he goes on, he says, develop a never give up attitude by actively meditating on three specific metaphors, and we read them. The first one, I believe, is the singular focus of a soldier. Why would he use that term?

Because soldiers are in a battle. The number one thing, and this is, Chip, this isn't like Bible, this is just my personal perspective. I believe the number one thing that's done the most damage in Christianity and especially in America is the subtle belief that Jesus came to make me happy and make my life work out. And so what we've created in the church is consumers. And so when people leave church or they decide where to go to church, it's about what did you do for me lately?

Is this program working? Am I happy? Is this all that? And God, what have you done for me lately? And the prosperity gospel has now gone across the world where the whole idea is that somehow you can manipulate God by breathing or speaking something into existence, but the whole goal is that God will make your life work out instead of you are a creature and you follow his agenda. And the goal is you make his agenda work out, and by the way, when you do that, the byproducts are often a richer and deeper marriage. The byproducts are kids that by and large will have a heart for God. The byproduct, he may well bless your life with finances and some other things, but they're never the goals. I mean, most of us would say that the early apostles were pretty successful in following Jesus, right?

Nod, nod, just right? Okay, they obeyed him. Can anybody remember like what happened to all the apostles except John, how they ended their life? In our theology today, they would've been out of the will of God. I guess they weren't walking with God.

They got killed, because God wants you to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise all the time. Here's the thing. It's easy for some of us, and I'm guessing where you're coming from, to look at that over there and instead of say, how much of that has creeped into me? How much of that has been when I look at the pandemic, you look at the pandemic, and you evaluated your experience with the church or life or what's going on, how much of it was this isn't being played out the way I want it played out for me?

Instead of what in the world would God have us do in light of all the needs and the hurts and the struggles and the fears that everyone is going through? First of all, the focus of a soldier, it's a battleground guarding what goes into your mind. Not getting distracted. Not getting distracted by, we'll develop it a bit later, secondary things.

Important, but they're secondary. Second, the continual discipline of a victorious athlete. He uses the word for a crown. There's a couple words in the New Testament for crown. One is for like for a king, and the other was a wreath if you were a victorious athlete, and he uses that. It's running a race. It's discipline. When you competed in the Olympic Games at that time, you would often have to go for a year or two years, and you would go into a closed training, and if you didn't show up for that training, you couldn't compete, and so what he's saying is we have to go into training.

There's a certain outline that God wants for us in terms of our life where we have to discipline ourselves to combat what we're all struggling with, right? I'm lazy, left to myself. When I feel a little bit blue, you know what?

Some crackers, NFL game, Diet Coke, some cheddar cheese, put my feet up, and then at halftime, some popcorn, third quarter, a piece of pizza, and then I find myself like during the commercials, I get bored, so I flip to something else, and then during that, I flip to something else, and then I flip to something else. Why? Because I got tired. When I'm tired, I'm vulnerable, and so I just want some relief.

I'm the only one, right, who does any of this. Just stop looking at me that way, and then I find myself watching something that I'm kind of numb, then I stay up later than I wanted to, then I have a hard time getting up, and then instead of feeling refreshed and invigorated and focused, I feel lethargic. See, you understand you're either developing habits and practices that create a negative, and guess what?

Then I feel lousy about it, so what? Well, there's another game on tomorrow, and well, forget that. Now, Friday night, we got football. Thursday night, we got football. Saturday morning, we got football, and now there's the NFL ticket. It is so easy, and it's not just football, right? What's yours? Hobbies or Facebook or streaming or Instagram. We can just fill our lives or posting about politics or posting about vaccines or posting about or sitting in front of the tube for an hour, and this is the news.

In five minutes, you know all the, and now for the next two hours, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and depending on whether you're a Fox person or a CNN person, it doesn't matter what objectively happened. Whoever's on the other side of that is the devil incarnate, and it's all their problem, and it's not us, and here's what's happened. Hostility in the church, in families, in the culture. He says, no, you need to be like that athlete. We're all tempted, but you have to be disciplined.

What you do, what you think, who you're with. And then I love the last metaphor, simile, is the patient perspective of the farmer to combat discouragement. What a farmer knows is you never reap in the same season that you sow, right? See, some of us are gonna get really fired up, and we're gonna say, I'm gonna start really growing and discipling at a new level, and you do it for about two weeks, and you're not gonna see a lot of change, and you'll think, ah, what the heck. That's like a farmer going and saying, boy, we need some, we need corn this year, and he puts some corn seed and sticks it in there and comes back in two weeks. I guess it doesn't work. Or comes back in a month, and there's one little tiny sprig.

Or comes back, you know, like in two and a half months, and it's up to here, and it looks good, but there's just these little things on it. See, the hardworking farmer understands. Perseverance, patience, endurance. Christian life isn't for wimps. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Be Strong, Don't Be Distracted. He'll be right back with his application for this teaching from his series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, A Study of Second Timothy. With all of the hatred and misconceptions pointed at Christianity nowadays, it's really difficult to be a genuine follower of Jesus. In this new study, Chip's gonna encourage us that now more than ever, we can't just settle for saying we're a Christian.

We have to live like one, too. Chip will help us put that into practice as he highlights four compelling challenges from the Apostle Paul's final letter to Timothy. Join us as we learn how to live more God-honoring lives and better disciple others along the way. To get more plugged in with this series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker, visit livingontheedge.org. That's livingontheedge.org. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now to talk about a really pressing issue that's going on in our world right now.

Chip? Thanks, Dave. You know, the Apostle Paul is talking to Timothy about not giving up, and what I want you to know is pastors all across the globe and about 40% of pastors in America have said they are ready to give up. Your pastor, children's pastors, youth pastors, senior pastors, they need our help, and at Living on the Edge, we've stepped into this gap, and we are helping pastors like never before, but I need your help.

Will you give to Living on the Edge during this pivotal time of our match? Just go to Living on the Edge, all one word, livingontheedge.org, and right now, every gift given before December 31 will allow us to channel a significant portion of the resources of Living on the Edge to help pastors here and around the world. Thanks so much for praying and then doing whatever the Lord chose you to do.

Thanks, Chip. And I'd like you to know that our goal for 2023 is to reach 170,000 more pastors with helpful training and resources. So if you'd like to be a part of that, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003 to make a gift. And as Chip said, every dollar we receive between now and December 31 will be matched dollar for dollar.

That number again is 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate. We'll hear again as Chip to share some application from his talk. As we close today's program, I know this issue of distraction is a big one for you and me, and I could give you 150 practical things about your phone and less TV and less movies and all the rest, but I think a big yes is more important than all those no's. Do you want to hear from God?

Do you want direction for your life? Do you want to hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit that when you don't know what to do in a relationship, in a situation or something at work, God is closer than you think, but you have to make room for Him? Consider carefully what could you do to limit your phone time, your TV time, but more importantly, how could you enlarge your God time to take a walk, to think, to pray, and then to listen?

The Lord wants to speak to you. Make room for Him to speak. Great challenge, Chip.

Thanks. As we wrap up, let me quickly tell you about a great way to listen to our extended teaching podcast, Hear Chip Anytime, on your Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. To get started, ask Alexa to enable the Chip Ingram podcast. Then just say, Alexa, play the Chip Ingram podcast. It's that easy. Well, join us again next time as Chip continues his series, Becoming an Effective Disciple Maker from the book of 2 Timothy. Until then, this is Dave Drouy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.