Life of Paul Part 28 - Timothy Joins the Team

Well, good morning, everybody. Hey, it's wonderful to have you here.

Thanks so much for being with us. Hey, let's take the Bible out. We're going to study it together, Acts chapter 16.

We're going to be continuing in our study of the life of a great man, the Apostle Paul, Acts chapter 16. And I want to begin today with some riddles. So here we go.

See what you think of them. What do you call 47 men watching the Super Bowl together on television? Answer? The devil.

Dallas Cowboys. All right, I got some more. I got more. All right, listen.

I got more. Wait a minute. What do you do to keep the Dallas Cowboys away from your yard?

Answer? Set up a goalpost there. Number three, why doesn't Fort Worth have a pro football team? Because then Dallas would want one. How about this one? What do you say to a Dallas Cowboy in a three-piece suit? Would the defenders present please rise? All right. Now, here's my favorite. Here's my favorite of all. What do the Dallas Cowboys and possums have in common?

Answer? They both play dead at home and get killed on the road. The fact is, Cowboy football is just coyote ugly these days.

But, you know, it didn't used to be that way. Between the years of 1991 and 1996, the Cowboys had a record of 70 wins, 26 losses. They won the NFL East four years in a row.

They won Super Bowls in 92, 93, 95. The point of all this is that teams are wonderful when they work and they're ugly when they don't. And, you know, folks, everywhere we go in our world today, the talk is all about teams.

In industry, in government, in the military, in athletics, in church work. All we ever hear about is teams, but we're all smart enough to know, I'm sure, that teams are only as good as the team members that comprise those teams. And so what we want to look at today as we continue in our study of the life of the Apostle Paul, we want to look, as God puts together, one of the most incredible teams that has ever been assembled, a team that changed the world, a team that worked. And the reason this team worked is because of the people who made up the team, because of the qualities of character of the people who made up this team and what they did. What we want to do is use this passage as a springboard to let God hopefully talk to you and me about being these kind of team members here at McLean Bible Church or on whatever team God ever puts us on. We want to be team members of the caliber that we're about to see here in this team that God puts together. So that's our plan.

Let's go back and do a little background first. Make sure we're all together. Remember in Acts chapter 15, the Apostle Paul came to Barnabas and said, hey, Barnabas, we want to be a team. We were partners on that first missionary journey. Let's go back now and let's visit all those cities where we led people to Christ and established churches and see how they're doing. Barnabas said, that's a great idea.

Let's do it. But Barnabas said, tell you what, I want to bring along my cousin named John Mark. Paul said, what, are you kidding?

Are you crazy? Are you nuts, John Mark? He went on the first journey with us and deserted us. He's not going on the second journey.

Forget it. I'm not taking him. That the Apostle Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement over John Mark that they parted company. And the rest of the verse, Barnabas took John Mark and sailed for Cyprus while Paul chose Silas. Silas was a Jewish believer that he had met when he was in Jerusalem at the Jerusalem Council earlier in Acts 15.

He invited Silas to come along with him and he went off into Syria and Cilicia. And Paul came to Derby and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. And the brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, Timothy. What we see in these verses, verses one and two, are three reasons why Timothy was the perfect third musketeer to add to this team that Paul was building.

And there are the three reasons for these. Number one, we see in these verses that Timothy's mother, Eunice, was a Jewish believer. Now, because his mother was Jewish, Timothy would have been considered to be Jewish by any Jewish community anywhere that he went. Also, because his mother was Jewish, she obviously taught him Jewish customs, Jewish rituals.

He was familiar with all of that. She also, being a Jewish mother, taught him the Old Testament. The Bible says, 2 Timothy 3.15, From infancy, Timothy, you have known the Holy Scriptures. Well, how did he know the Holy Scriptures from an infant? The answer is his mother taught him the Scripture. He, therefore, would have been fluent in Hebrew.

He would have been fluent in Aramaic, the language of the Jewish people of the day. So the first advantage that Timothy brought to this team is that everywhere Paul went and worked with Jewish people, Timothy would have been a huge help. He didn't need Timothy. He had Silas. Silas was a Jewish believer.

Well, that's true. But Timothy brings more to the team than that. The second thing we learn here is that Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, tells us that Timothy's father was a Greek. Now, did you ever wonder why he said a Greek and not a Gentile?

There's a reason for that. Sir William Ramsay, professor of classical archaeology and languages at Oxford University a hundred years ago, wrote a wonderful book called The Cities of St. Paul. He did excavations in Lystra, and what he found in Lystra is that there were three classes of people who made up the city of Lystra in the days of Paul.

There was an elite Roman aristocracy who ran and ruled the city. There was a large mass of common people who just were local native people, and then there was a small middle class of Greek merchants who grew rich on the trade that moved through this city, and so Luke didn't say he was a Gentile. Luke said his dad was a Greek because his dad was a member of this Greek middle class, a wealthy member of this Greek middle class, and actually by using this, once again the Bible confirms that Luke was there and knew more about Lystra than people have known for almost 2,000 years, and he was more accurate than just saying Gentile.

Now, Sir William Ramsay says this, and I quote, he said, the fact that Timothy's father was accepted in the Gentile society of Lystra even though he was the husband of a Jewish lady proves that he was a person of some standing in Lystra. You understand what he's saying? That you wouldn't have been able to keep your standing in this Greek middle class marrying a Jewish lady unless you were a pretty big mocker. You understand what I'm saying?

All right. Now, the reason that's important for us is because this means that Timothy was no country bumpkin. Being the son of a wealthy merchant, he would have had the best tutors in town. He would have had the best education, secularly speaking, in town. He would have been fluent in Latin. He would have been fluent in Greek.

He would have known all the customs and practices of Roman culture. He would have known all about the religions of the Roman world, and why would that have made him a great addition to this team? Because Paul doesn't know it yet, but this team is going into Roman Europe to affect Roman Europe, and having a guy like Timothy along who's been educated in all these things and enculturated in all these things would be a huge advantage. Third, the third reason he was a great advantage to the team is verse 2 says, the brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, Timothy. Now, there's little doubt that the apostle Paul had led Timothy to Christ on his first journey.

Several places he calls Timothy my child in the faith. But in the intervening two years, Timothy has gone on to become a real man of God, so much so that his reputation has spread beyond just Lystra 25 miles away to Iconium. And the apostle Paul remembered John Mark.

He remembered that when things got rough, John Mark ran away. He knew he needed somebody that had spiritual depth and spiritual character and spiritual commitment for the second missionary journey. And this was Timothy.

Everybody in the region said, this is your man. So for these three reasons, number one, his Jewish background and biblical training. Number two, his secular education and his Roman enculturation. And number three, his personal integrity and his spiritual commitment. For these three reasons, the apostle Paul invited Timothy to join the team.

Now, there was one small problem. Verse three. And Paul wanted to take him along on the journey. So he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. When Timothy was born, he wasn't circumcised, according to Jewish tradition, because his dad, being a gentile, wouldn't let it happen. Everybody in town knew about that. You say, well, why?

How was it their business? Friends, in the Jewish community, when a baby gets circumcised, it's a community event. Even to this day, everybody in that town knew that boy's not been circumcised. And we know, as we've been studying Acts, we know what a huge stumbling block that would be for Jewish people all over everywhere. So Paul said, hey, Timothy, you know what?

I would love for you to go with me, son. There's just one little thing we need to take care of before we do this. I tell you what, without modern anesthesia, without modern pain medications, one can only imagine what it must have been like to get circumcised as an adult.

As a matter of fact, I think we'd prefer not to imagine what it must have been like. But if there was ever any doubt in Paul's mind that he had a spiritual winner on his hands in Timothy, this removed it. I mean, Timothy said, Paul, I want my life to count. I want to be part of this team. I want God to use me. And if I've got to get circumcised as an adult for that to happen, then so be it.

I'll do it. Verse 4, and after Timothy had healed, that doesn't actually say that, but we know that's true. And after Timothy had healed, they traveled from town to town and delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. And so the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. Remember now, this team, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, they only thought they were making a 100-mile circuit, and they were going home.

That's all they had planned to do. Little did they know what God really had intended for these guys, that God was going to take this three-man team, and he was going to use this team to change the entire history of the world for the next 2,000 years. You know, this team stuck together until the apostle Paul's death.

They were together over 20 years, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and the world you live in today is different than it would have been because of this one team, these three men. Now, we're going to stop here. We'll look at the rest of this in the weeks to come, but we got a really important question to ask, and so everybody ready for this? You all ready? Okay, here we go.

Ready? One, two, three. So what? Ah, right. So what?

You say, Lon, so what? I mean, I really feel bad for Timothy, but what difference does this make to my life? I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me.

Well, it does, and I think there's a great principle in here for us as team members of whatever team we're on. We're going to talk about it, but you know, history has known some great teams. For example, there's been the Lone Ranger and Tonto, right? There's been Batman and Robin.

There's been Popeye and Olive Oil, right? Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Johnny Carson and McMahon. Mo Larry and Curly, right? Maverick and?

Well, God bless you couple of people who got that right. Yeah, how can the rest of you not know that? Didn't you see Top Gun?

How can you be an American and not see Top Gun? Maverick and? Goose, thank you very much. But you know, folks, this team, Silas, Paul, Timothy, has to rank as one of the most powerful and effective teams in the history of the world. But as we said earlier, teams are only as good as the team members. What made this a great team was the quality of the team members that were on it.

And you know what? It's always God's plan to use teams. The greatest missionary outreaches in history have been teams. The greatest campus ministries in history have been teams. The greatest church works in history have been teams. And we have a job to do in this city. God has called us to make an impact on this city for Jesus Christ. The only way we're going to do it is to be a great team. And the only way we can be a great team is to have team members with the qualities that the guys on this team had.

So I'm going to spend the last little bit of time I've got today looking at Timothy. There were four reasons. There were four values. There were four virtues that he had that made him the incredible team member that he was. If we can figure out what they are and copy them, we'll become better team members. This will become a stronger team and we'll be able to carry out our mission a lot better.

So this is for you and me. These things will work for secular teams, but they really are important for us on this church team. So let's figure out why is Timothy such a great team member? Number one, because Timothy was trustworthy.

Listen to what Paul says about in Philippians 2 verse 19. He says, I hope to send Timothy to you soon, for I have no one else like him, a person who will genuinely look out for your interests. For everyone else looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ, but you know of Timothy's proven record.

What is the apostle Paul really saying about Timothy here? Let me tell you, friends, he's simply saying that Timothy is a man I know I can trust. I can send him into any situation and I can trust this man. I can put him with any group of people. I can trust this man. I can give him any assignment. I can trust this man that he will do the righteous thing, the honorable thing, the godly thing, the biblical thing. I don't have to look over his shoulder and I don't have to micromanage him. I can trust this man. He's proven it. And it seems to me that trustworthiness is probably the single most important ingredient in being a good team member.

We can't build teams with people we can't trust. A few years ago, I had a person who was on our church staff here, and someone came to me and said some things that weren't too complimentary about something this person had done. So I asked this person to join me in my office and we were talking and I said, here's what somebody told me about you.

Is it true? And this guy looked me right square in these gorgeous blue eyes of mine, at least that's what my wife says, but anyway. Looked me right in these eyes and said to me, absolutely not true, absolutely false.

Gave me a completely different explanation, did it with passion, did it with believability. And I said, OK, all right. I believe you.

You're on my team? Of course, I believe you. Well, it turns out I found out a little while later that what the person had told me was true and that this staff person had stood there eyeball to eyeball with me and blatantly lied to me. I mean, just bold face lied to me.

I could not believe it. And I called him in and I said, you know what? I really like you, but you're off the team. It's just that simple because I can't have people on the team that I can't trust and I can't trust you.

And you can't stay on the team having lied to me like that. You know, friends, we've learned here at McLean Bible Church when we look for new staff members that the number one criterion we're looking for is not a seminary degree. The number one criterion we're looking for is not skills.

There are a lot of people with wonderful skills that have lousy character and you can't build a team with them. We're looking above everything else. When we look for a member of our team, we're looking for integrity. We're looking for character. We're looking for people we can trust. We're looking for people we can send into any group, into any situation, into any kind of an arrangement. And we know we can trust them to conduct themselves in a biblical, honorable, godly way. And that's the kind of people God wants you to be and the kind of people he wants me to be.

The kind of person where people can trust us. We say something. We do it. We commit to something. We follow through. We say we're going to be there.

We're there. We're going to conduct ourselves in a way that doesn't embarrass and disgrace other people. People can trust us. The first issue in being a great team member is to be trustworthy. Number two, Timothy was a great team member because number two, he was humble. Timothy was humble. Now, what do we mean when we say somebody was humble?

Well, what we mean, friends, to be humble is to somebody that you can approach, somebody that you can talk to, somebody that you can correct, somebody that's teachable, approachable, that will own their stuff and will make appropriate changes. Look here at 2 Timothy, chapter one. Paul writes him and says, Timothy, I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God that's in you, for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self-discipline. Therefore, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or about me, his prisoner.

Rather, join with me in suffering for the good news. Now, unless I misunderstand the Bible here, Paul is reprimanding Timothy in these verses. Apparently, Timothy had become a little lukewarm. Maybe he'd just gotten a little embarrassed about the Lord. Maybe he'd gotten a little adverse to the suffering that comes when you stand up and go public. Paul didn't like it. Paul's writing him and correcting him and rebuking him. And, folks, you know what?

Timothy could have really become like a porcupine. He could have really said, hey, well, what are you doing? Hey, what are you correcting me? Why don't you write me in private? Well, how come you got to put it in the Holy Bible?

So for 2000 years, everybody reads about it. He could have really become just huffy and puffy about this whole thing. He didn't. This was an approachable guy. He listened to what Paul said and he made the appropriate changes. You say, well, how do you know that? I know that because Eusebius, the church historian, tells us that after Paul's death, Timothy became the bishop of Ephesus and he died in 97 A.D. at the hands of a mob who stoned him to death because he stood up for Jesus Christ and refused to back down. So they killed him out in the streets. Did he take to heart what Paul told him about not being ashamed, not being embarrassed of the Lord?

Yes, he did. Friends, listen, humility is another essential quality of being a great team member. Being teachable, being approachable.

I mean, we all wish we got it right all the time, but we don't. And having the ability to let somebody come and talk to us and correct us and rebuke us is important. You can't build teams with porcupines.

They don't make good team members. Number three, Timothy was a true servant. What do we mean by a person being a true servant?

Friend, his true servant is a person who's willing to put the needs of others and the welfare of the team ahead of themselves. Remember what Paul said about Timothy? Chapter two, verse 20 of Philippians, he said, For I have no one else like him, a person who will genuinely look out for your interests, for everyone else looks out for their own interests. Timothy was a guy like this.

Timothy was a guy who was willing to put the welfare of the sheep, who was willing to put the welfare of the team ahead of his own welfare. We see it again in Acts chapter 18. Verse five there says that when Timothy and Silas arrived in Corinth, Paul was able to devote himself exclusively to preaching. Now, in the verses just before this, we learn that before Timothy arrived, Paul was working for a living. He was making tents, and the only time he could go out and preach was after he got off work. Timothy arrives, and now Paul's able to go exclusively to preaching.

Why? Well, the implication's clear. Guess who went to work? Timothy did. That's what freed up Paul to be able to go out and preach all the time. And you know, a lesser person than Timothy would have said, Hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, just here. I didn't sign onto this team to go out and work and shovel manure or whatever so you could go preach.

I could have stayed back in Lystra in my own house and dug on to work. I came on this to preach. I came on this to be a big shot for God. Paul, why do you get to go preach?

But you know what? That is not what Timothy did. Timothy said, Hey, Paul, you're the star of this team. Hey, Paul, you're the one who should be out there preaching. And Paul, if I have to go to work so that you can go out there and preach, then I'm going to go to work. And Paul, you go preach. This was a guy who put the welfare of the team ahead of himself, which is what made him such a great team member.

You say, Well, Lon, this is wonderful. You say trustworthiness, humility, being a true servant. These are great qualities. But my question is, I mean, I look at my life and I'm not exactly the way I ought to be on all three of these things. How do I get better at these things? How do I become more like Timothy?

Well, I'm glad you asked, because that leads to number four. And that's this, that Timothy was steeped in the scriptures. You see, friends, these values of trustworthiness and humility and servanthood, these are biblical values. These are values that are taught and extolled and modeled for us in the word of God. You're not going to learn these values reading Time magazine, Newsweek magazine or God forbid, the Washington Post. You're not going to learn these values.

You're not going to see them modeled on Capitol Hill. We're not going to see them being lived out in the law offices of Washington, D.C. Where are we going to go to see these values in action and to be challenged to live this way? There's only one place we're going to see these values rubbing off on us.

And that's as we read the pages of the B.I.B.L.E. These are biblical values. They are not secular values.

You will not hear our culture lift high these values of trustworthiness, humility and servanthood. And how did Timothy become the man that he was? Very simple. We saw it earlier. 2 Timothy 3.15, From infancy you have known the holy scriptures. This was a guy who was steeped in the Bible. The Bible was his authority. The Bible was his model. The Bible was his guy. His mother had put it in him before he even was old enough to know what it meant. And that's how you get a Timothy coming out the other end.

And when he was an adult he kept doing it. You know, I read a survey recently of Christians in America. And the survey found that the average Christian in America said that they spend less than two minutes a day reading and studying the Word of God. Now, would you call that steeping ourselves in the Word of God? Shoot friends, I steep my tea.

This bag stays in the water longer than two minutes. And how in the world are we going to become the men and women of God like Timothy was with a minute and a half a day in the Word of God? Well, it's not going to happen. Some of us think God drops wiffle dust from heaven and that's how Timothy's happened. Not true, not true, not true. Timothy's happen when people begin living out a biblical world view. And people get a biblical world view and encouraged to keep a biblical world view by spending serious quality time in the Word of God. That's the only way it's done. That's how Timothy became Timothy. That's how Paul became Paul. And that's how you and I are going to become men and women of God. It's the only way to do it.

There is no wiffle dust. Now here at McLean Bible Church, if you're a follower of Christ, I believe God brought you here not to be a consumer. I believe God brought you here not to be a spectator. I believe God brought you here and He brought me here to be a contributor, to be a team member in reaching this city for Jesus Christ. But this team, as I said earlier, is only good as we are team members.

And I'm here to challenge you today. I'm here hopefully to motivate us today to say we're not going to be content with the world's definition of a great team member. We're going to rise above that to a biblical definition of a great team member, a person like Timothy. And what made Timothy a great team member? Number one, Timothy was a trustworthy individual. When Timothy told you something, friend, you could take it to the bank. When you asked Timothy to do something, you never had to think about it again. In any situation, this was a person you could count on to do it right and never embarrass you or the team.

Number two, Timothy was a man with personal humility. You could talk to the man. You could approach the man. You could correct the man. And he would own his stuff and he'd make the changes necessary.

He'd accept fault if there was fault. Number three, Timothy was a true servant. He put the welfare of the team and the welfare of God's sheep, the welfare of people ahead of his own personal welfare.

That's a true team member. And number four, and finally, Timothy had a biblical worldview. He saw the world through the eyes of the scripture. And you know how he did that? He did it because he steeped himself in the Word of God. He immersed himself in the Word of God and that's how he got all these other values in his life. Folks, I'm here to ask you today to aspire to be one of these kind of team members with us.

I'm here to ask you today to commit to be in the Word of God so you can grow in these areas of being trustworthy, of being humble, of being a servant, of looking at all the world through biblical eyes. This is what makes great team members and great team members make a great team. And a great team here at McLean Bible Church, man, we can rock this city.

That's how it all works. It starts with you and me. May God help us to rise up and say, Lord, Timothy is my model and that's where I want you to get me.

Let's pray. Father, every one of us here today is a team member on some team. Whether we're on a family team or an industry team or an athletic team, a government team, a military team. The question is not whether we're team members.

The question is whether we're good team members. My prayer is that you would use what we've talked about today to inspire us to rise above our secular definition of a good team member and rise up to a biblical definition, that you would use what we've talked about today to motivate us to want to be like Timothy, a person of trustworthiness, humility, a person of biblical worldview and servanthood. And God, as you make us better team members, then I pray you would make us a better team so that we could impact this city the way you've called us to do. So change our lives because we were here today. Change the life of McLean Bible Church because we were here today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.