Perseverance in Crisis

A Simple Choice — Or Is It?

Tonight's passage gives Timothy a very simple choice. If you were here last week, we saw just how bad the opponents can get. So tonight Paul simply says, "Timothy, do you want to be like them, or do you want to be like me?"

You can see it in the structure. Chapter 3 verses 1–9 are all about them — "they, they, they." Then verse 10 turns: "You, however, know all about me, Paul." My, my, my, my.

Remember, this was written to Timothy, the church leader, from Paul, the church leader. So it isn't first of all that we should all be like Paul. But — frighteningly — it does tell you what you should look for in a church minister. It tells you what to look for in a church. It tells you what you need to be ready for if you're willing to be one of the faithful people from 2:2 who would teach others. And it tells all of us — including visitors tonight — what we should be encouraging and supporting in our church at the moment.

The Same Choice, Working Itself Out

This isn't the first big choice Timothy has been offered. It's actually the same choice, working itself out.

• The choice in chapter 2 was: Will you teach the words that God wants, or the words that people want to hear?
• The choice in chapter 3 is: Be like them, or be like Paul.

And remember what we saw in chapter 3 verse 1 — this is reality, reality 101 in the last days:

There will be terrible times.

Which means there will be teachers who appear godly but are not.

Paul's Life: It Starts So Well

Let's start with Paul's life in verse 10. If you know Paul's life, it starts so well, doesn't it?

Be like them, Timothy — or be like Paul's teaching. Teach grace and forgiveness. That sounds good. Be like Paul's way of life, his conduct, his reputation for wisdom and holiness. All right, maybe we could do that. Be like Paul's purpose — to convert the world, bring thousands to Jesus. Maybe you say, "Yes, Lord, I'm ready." Be like Paul's faith, his huge faith — yes, please. Be like Paul's patience — well, I do get impatient, so all right, I'll try. Be like Paul's love — such a loving man. Be like Paul's endurance — never give up, never surrender.

It sounds like such a simple choice, doesn't it? Particularly if you remember how unattractive the people in verse 9 sounded.

If Only Paul Didn't Ruin It in Verse 11

...my persecutions, my sufferings, the kinds of things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured.

It's as if someone went up to Paul, all excited, and said, "Paul, I want to be just like you! I'll copy you — the dedication, the preaching, the traveling, the converts." And Paul coughs and says, "...and the sufferings." In fact, mainly the sufferings. That's what it means to be like me.

Let me read verse 10 again, but now that we know about verse 11, let's start at persecutions and work backwards:

• Endurance — that means to be persecuted, and to let them do it to you again and again.
• Love — either love the people who persecute you, or love humanity enough to tell them the gospel despite the persecutions that come with it.
• Patience — your emotional state while they are persecuting you.
• Faith — what you'd need to keep on putting up with it.
• My purpose — turn back to 2:10:

I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

That's Paul's purpose: I will suffer anything if it means anybody gets to obtain salvation.

Do you see? This is Paul's way of life. This is the result of his teaching. This is his experience everywhere he goes. Is it still an easy choice?

Antioch, Iconium and Lystra

Look at those places he mentions. In Antioch, lots of people became Christians, then some didn't like it, and he was driven out — not just from the city, but from the whole region. So he goes to Iconium, and again lots of people become Christians, but the city is divided, and there's a plot to stone him to death. So Paul runs for his life to Lystra, where he does a great miracle, and the town loves him — so much that they think he's one of the Greek gods and try to worship him. But then some people come from Antioch and Iconium, win the crowd over, and this time they really do stone him. They only stop because they think he is dead. He crawls away to the next town.

I used to read this chapter and think those three places must have been the worst places Paul ever went. But if you look up the references in Acts, these are just the first places he went — the first missionary journey. This is just how it is, from beginning to end.

And it's a pointed list to choose for Timothy. Where do you think Timothy was from? He's from Lystra — the "worship-Paul-one-day, stone-him-the-next" place. That's his hometown. The level of violence is crazy. The roller coaster of love then hate is crazy. The mixture of loads of conversions but also loads of anger is crazy. But it is also normal. That's what Paul is saying.

I preached on Acts 14 about a year ago for some new ministers heading off to lead churches. This week, one of them sought me out at a conference to thank me. She said, "Thank you for telling us about the way that people can love you one minute and hate you the next. That has been really important this year." Isn't that an important thing to say? This is normal in Christian ministry.

Are You a "Verse 10 Only" Christian?

When it says in verse 10, "you know all about," that's a word that normally means follower or disciple. The clue is in the name. Nothing is hidden in Christianity. Do you want to be a follower of Jesus? Do you want to be a disciple of Paul? If we want to follow after Jesus, then we should expect, normally, to be treated like him.

Which is where Paul drops his second piece of reality about life in the last days:

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (v.12)

Call it reality 102: in the last days there will be terrible times, and everyone godly will be persecuted.

A Diagnostic, Not a Target

Now, that's not a rule, and certainly not a target. It's like a speed limit — a 60 sign doesn't mean you should try to hit 60 on every road. It doesn't mean you should be more and more horrible to people until you finally get one of them to persecute you.

But it is a diagnostic. Certainly we should let go of its opposite. If you think that any sign of persecution in your life means something has gone wrong — that Jesus has abandoned you or let you down — that is not true. Jesus was persecuted, and he said we would be too.

Used carefully, it works as a diagnostic. If we are not currently being persecuted, just check that this isn't what you've made your main purpose in life, even by accident. The good life is not simply the unpersecuted life. Check whether you're still copying Paul's teaching, life, purpose, faith, patience, love and endurance.

Ask yourself:

• What do I do if it looks like someone might be about to persecute me?
• What do I do if part of Paul's teaching is unpopular? Do I leave it out? Or do I leave them out — out of my intention to endure everything so that anyone could be saved, even them?
• Do I secretly think Jesus doesn't really want me to suffer?

And What About Persecuted Church Leaders?

Take it one step further. Timothy is a church leader — so what do we think about church leaders who suffer and are persecuted?

There's something magic about geography here. If they're in a different country, I always think, "What a hero! Persecuted for Jesus — aren't they fantastic? Pray for them!" But if they're in this country, or in my city, that's a bit harder, isn't it? It's a bit easier to blame them.

If they're suffering and I'm not, I presume it's because they just haven't quite found the way to finesse the situation the way I can. Presumably they're a bit abrasive, a bit brash, a bit difficult. It's got to be that, hasn't it? — rather than admitting that I've set up my checks and balances so that I always stop short of saying the thing that might get me into what Paul calls normal.

Am I a verse-10-only church leader? Are we a verse-10-only church?

Why Impostors Are So Attractive

Put reality 101 and reality 102 together. If everyone godly will be persecuted, do you see why we might suddenly have lots of teachers who only appear to be godly? Look at what Paul calls them in verse 13: evildoers and impostors. They have a form of godliness, but they deny its power.

By 4:3 we learn the churches are still full in Timothy's Ephesus — even though in 1:15 we're told everyone in Asia has deserted Paul. Do you see why they might have deserted him? Paul's way of being a Christian gets you persecuted. So what if someone came along offering a version of Christianity that didn't get you persecuted? Wouldn't that be good news?

Remember the false teachers from chapter 2: experts in the Jewish law, lovers of detailed arguments about words, claiming to go back to the original and to know the Bible better than Paul and Timothy.

The Historical Squeeze

Why would Christians in the 60s AD in the Roman Empire suddenly want to look a little more Jewish? Because Judaism had an exemption from the laws that forced everyone to worship the emperor and the gods of Rome. Early on, Christians seem to have lived inside that exemption — everyone agreed Christianity was simply the fulfilment of Judaism. That's what Paul seems to be testing in court at the end of Acts, and it seems to have gone well: Paul is released, the emperor thinks Christianity is okay.

But a few years later the crisis breaks. The emperor has changed his mind. Paul is in prison again — this time on death row. It is now dangerous to be one of Paul's Christians.

So can you see why an impostor — with lots of clever Old Testament arguments, who looks more religious than Paul, who can also find you a way to live how you want and never be persecuted — would be very, very attractive to Timothy and his congregation?

Not So Different Today

This isn't so different from where Christians always live in the last days. Around the world today you find explicit versions of it — state churches with state Bibles and state doctrines, lists of what you may and may not teach. And everywhere else you find the same thing imposed by soft power instead — soft power and the offer of favours.

I said a few weeks ago that I think the greatest false teaching in the Church of England today is universalism — the idea that in the end everybody gets saved, that it doesn't really matter what you believe. Why has that become the great distortion in England in the 20th and 21st centuries? Isn't it because it fits so neatly with our secular relativism and pluralism? If that's the big idea in your culture, you're really looking for Christians who will baptise all of it and make it sound Christian. Do that, and you can be in church and not be persecuted — and you don't have to teach all those unpleasant things that keep getting Paul into trouble.

We haven't understood this chapter unless we can see why Timothy would want to be like that. Only when we see how hard the choice is can we truly commit to being — and helping our church leaders be — like Paul and not like them.

Point Two: Continue in What You Have Learned

So how do we do that? The main command is right there in verse 14: continue.

Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures... (vv.14–15)

Continue in what you've learned, what you've believed, what you became convinced of — the Scriptures you were taught from infancy, and all the Scriptures.

The Scriptures Mean Salvation

Verse 15 says they can make you wise for salvation. That's an idea from chapter 1 — what's at stake is whether the gospel will have a next generation. And it's not a bad gospel, is it? It's the message that brings life and immortality. Continue in it. Don't be fooled by the impostors. Even if you have to choose suffering, stick with the Scriptures, because they mean salvation.

The Scriptures Mean Usefulness

Verse 16 adds another idea from chapter 2: usefulness. Will Timothy be a useful minister — useful to his master, useful in God's house, an approved worker? If so, then continue in the words God wants said, the words God has already said, and not the words people want to hear.

So here is the choice for Timothy, for any church leader, for anyone thinking of offering their life as a faithful person who will teach others:

• You can stick with the Bible — and through it people may be saved, many people. You can be massively useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, which is simply the best way to live, God's way to live.
• Or you can be popular. You can be safe from persecution.

You can be useful, or you can be popular. You can be useful, or you can be safe.

Verses 16–17 aren't just there so we'd know what the Bible is, or merely to prove the Bible is true. They're here because this is the painful, searing, burning choice in every church, in every country, in every age, all over the world: Are you going to continue in the Scriptures, or would you rather be popular and safe?

A Religion of Written Words

When Paul says this, he simply stands in line with Jesus. Jesus set up a religion of the book — a religion based in words, in written words, in prophets and apostles. That was always God's plan.

Which means continue has always been one of the key commands. Stick with these words. Stay here. In fact, if you dislike the idea of staying still on a set of written words, then Christianity is not really for you. All three Abrahamic religions and their offshoots won't suit you if you don't want to stick with ancient words that have been written down. You'd need something that encourages you to move on, develop new ideas, evolve and change.

I feel the attraction of that, the same as anyone in my generation. But I want to stick with the Scriptures, and I want your help as a church to keep me there — because I'm convinced this is where salvation for other people and usefulness to you comes from. And that is worth any amount of suffering.

Why Timothy Should Continue

Let me quickly go through why Timothy should continue with the Scriptures.

They are trustworthy (v.14). He knows where these ideas came from — from Paul and the other eyewitnesses of Jesus. Verse 14 is about the teaching that becomes the New Testament; everything else here is about what we now call the Old Testament, which Paul simply called the Holy Scriptures.

They are ancient. Verse 15 — "from infancy." Long before anyone told you the name of Jesus, you learned the gospel message from Isaiah and Micah and Moses and David; you learned it when your mother and grandmother sat with you and did "baby Torah." This matters, because Timothy is half Jewish, half Gentile. The false teachers claim to be more ancient, more original, more Jewish than Paul. "Come with us, be more Jewish, escape the persecution." And all the time, burning a hole in his top pocket, Timothy has his Jewish passport through his mother if he wants it. All he has to do is turn away from Paul. But he'd be leaving the real ancient message for a fraud — impostors dressing up in ancient clothes, but not the real thing, which is Jesus.

They are salvation. You already said it — don't move on. You know they saved you, and you know they're the only thing that can save someone else.

Most Important of All: These Are God's Words

Verse 16 says Scripture is God-breathed. That's not a complicated idea — you're doing it now. You hear me because my breath somehow carries vibrations across the room that carry my meaning to you. This sermon is Charlie-breathed. That's just how vocal cords and ears work.

Verse 16 says the written words of Scripture are like that for God. These words, these books, carry God's speech like breath carries normal speech. In our generation we use printer ink and eyeballs instead of vocal cords and ears — but nothing else has changed.

So the right way to respond to these words is the same way you'd respond if God or Jesus were in the corner of the room, speaking to you. That still leaves all the hard work of understanding context and vocabulary — working out whether there's an exaggeration, an image, a metaphor. But the principle stands: respond to these words as if God were saying them to you now.

That's why we're so obsessed with the page number — we want you to follow along as we preach. My words are only useful to you if I repeat what God is saying here. But once you read and understand what God has written, you need to respond as you would to God in the room:

• Would God be allowed to rebuke and correct you? Or are you beyond his rebuke? If you'd let him, then let the Bible correct and rebuke you.
• Would you believe God if he stood in the room and said, "I have forgiven you"? Then believe him when the Scriptures say it.

This is why it makes no sense for churches to put up with anything other than the word of God. I could easily fill half an hour with my own opinions — current affairs, politics, art, history. But if I did that, you shouldn't come. Listen to God, not to any human being. If Timothy wants to be of any use, to save anyone, he must keep opening the Scriptures — even when it's dangerous.

Usefully Comprehensive, Universally Sufficient

If he does that, he'll find the Scriptures are usefully comprehensive. Look at the mix in verse 16 — positive and negative, teach and rebuke, correct and train. Scripture is comprehensive the way a paramedic's medical kit is comprehensive: everything you need is here.

And it's universal. So comprehensive that, verse 17, the servant of God with a Bible is "thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Have you ever wondered what I, or any of the ministers, can possibly offer you? All we have is a Bible. There are no great secrets, no wisdom apart from that. But what we do have is a Bible. And if you set out yourself as a "2:2" faithful person trying to teach others, this verse says we could send you anywhere.

This month we have mission partners visiting — some sent to the most challenging places in the world. Wherever you go, if you take a Bible, you have everything you need, for any place, for any moment in anybody's life, for any changing season of our world with all its fads and ideologies.

The Choice That Never Changes

Do you see this basic choice? It has remained the same throughout the age of the church:

• Are we here to save people, or to be liked by people?
• Are we here to be useful to people, or to be safe from people?
• Are we going to treat the Bible as if it were from man about God, or as if it were from God himself?

That determines whether you think this book was merely useful for people back then and needs serious updating for today — or whether it is useful for all people, in every time and every place. And if you believe that, then you'll pray, and work, and labour, and join in — so that we would have churches that continue in it, sticking with the pattern Paul passed on to Timothy.