Replication

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Transcript:

Turn with me tonight to 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 1. This is a passage that I have become a lot more familiar with in the last year. And in this passage, Paul’s writing a letter to Timothy, who was sort of his protege, his disciple, if you will.

We don’t know from the biblical text that Paul was the one who led Timothy to Christ. As a matter of fact, it’s more than likely that the opposite is the case, that he did not lead him to Christ, that it was, in fact, his mother and grandmother who did so. But we can tell from the biblical text that Paul and Timothy had a close relationship, that Paul had obviously been someone who had mentored or discipled Timothy in the faith, who had taught him, who had helped him to grow up into this mature Christian who was now leading others. And Paul, knowing that he was getting to the end of his life, to the end of his ministry, writes some parting thoughts to Timothy, and that’s what we see in 2 Timothy.

In this chapter, he begins talking to Timothy about staying strong, and he talks about some negative examples of people who did not stay strong in the faith versus some who did. And then he teaches Timothy, tells Timothy what he needs to do on the basis of that, not only to stay strong, but stay strong in order to teach others and lead others to stay strong in the faith. We begin tonight in verse 13 where he says, hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. And this is one of many passages that we discussed over the last year during the Disciple Way groups. And one of the questions in there is are there key terms or phrases that need to be researched further.

And we talked about some of the things that we may have an idea what they mean but we don’t have it absolutely nailed down. So what are the things that for our own personal benefit, we would make a list and say, I need to study these out more. One of those things for me was sound words.

I have an understanding of what sound words mean from a biblical perspective that it’s talking about correct doctrine, talking about correct teaching. But in this instance, what specifically is it that Paul would have meant and Timothy would have understood? And we refer back to some of Paul’s other writings, especially to 1 Timothy.

And you get the picture very quickly that what he’s talking about with sound words is the doctrine of Christ. That Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that He was the payment for our sins, that He died on the cross for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He rose again. These sorts of things that are foundational to the faith. He’s not just talking about sound words in the sense of general wise counsel.

For example, a penny saved, a penny earned. That’s wise counsel, but it’s not sound words from a biblical perspective. It’s not godly wisdom.

There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not doctrine. That’s not the kind of thing that Paul was telling Timothy to hold fast to. No, he tells him the things that you already know and have been taught about Jesus Christ. Hold on to those things because there was no shortage of people in their day, just as there’s no shortage in our day of people who were willing to corrupt the doctrine of Christ, who were willing to teach anything and everything about Christ that would get them a hearing, that would get them a following, would get them some money.

And we see the same thing today. any number of people willing to teach any number of things about who Jesus Christ is, what He did, why He came, and if it deviates from what we’ve already understood to be the case from the Bible, it’s heresy and it’s to be rejected. Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God, God in human flesh, lived a perfect sinless life after having been born of a virgin, ministered in complete obedience to God, did miracles, did the work of God, and then went obediently to the cross as the only payment, as the only one who could stand in our place and be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

And then he rose again from the dead. Folks, if we can’t stand fast on this truth, there’s nothing we can stand fast on. If we can’t hold on to this, there’s nothing in our Bible, there’s nothing in our doctrinal statement, there’s nothing in any of our beliefs that can’t be tossed out if this is not foundational. So he tells him, hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

He says, the things you’ve heard from me. And he’s not saying because you’ve heard it from me, that makes it automatically good. So everything I, Paul, have told you.

No, he says the things I’ve told you are the truth. And therefore, what you’ve heard from me, hold fast to. That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us.

The teaching that was given to him, the gifts for ministry that were given to him, he was to keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us. That he as a believer had access to the Holy Ghost, and it was the Holy Ghost who would empower him for ministry. He says in verse 15, This thou knowest that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom are Phagellus and Hermogenes.

And at this point, I don’t know whether or not he’s talking about literally every person in Asia. It could be that every person in the province of Asia Minor, what’s today Turkey, had turned away from him. But we do know from the testimony of other places in the scriptures that there were churches that were flourishing in that part of the world, even up to the end of Paul’s ministry.

So it’s more likely in my perspective that when he says everybody, he’s using hyperbole. He doesn’t mean every single person to the man. But the vast majority of people, it was as though everybody had turned away from him, and in so doing had turned away from the faith.

They weren’t just abandoning Paul because they said, oh, we don’t like Paul anymore. They were abandoning Paul because Paul had been imprisoned and persecuted for the faith. And so turning away from Paul was because they weren’t strong enough to say, you know, here we stand for Jesus Christ and we can do no other.

He said, of whom are Phagellus and Hermogenes? He points these guys out. And as wonderful, I think, as it would have been for an early believer to get your name in the Bible, to where now we’re talking about them 2,000 years later, I wouldn’t want to be these guys and have my name in here for that reason.

That they had turned away from Paul because they had turned away from the faith. He says, the Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain. But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently and found me.

Now, to be identified with Paul was to be identified with Christ, was to publicly say to the world around him and to the Roman authorities included, that I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. And even the Romans’ own writers and historians say that to be identified with the name of Christ was to submit yourself to the most exquisite tortures, I believe is what Tacitus called it. The most exquisite tortures. And yet this man, Onesiphorus, was merciful.

And he refreshed Paul. He was not ashamed of his chain. And it wasn’t just that while he was there in the prison or where Paul was under house arrest, he had the opportunity, so he did something nice for him.

He says, no, he sought him out. And we see a very clear contrast between those who remain in the faith, like Onesiphorus, and those who draw back when things get difficult, like Phagellus and Hermogenes. Verse 18, the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day, and how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus thou knowest very well.

And so he talks about other men who’ve been strong in the faith, like Onesiphorus. And he encourages Timothy in this, follow the example of Onesiphorus. Remain strong in the faith.

Or if you want a negative example, don’t be like Phagellus and Hermogenes. Be strong in the faith. Hold fast to the sound words.

Hold fast to the truth that you know in the person of Jesus Christ. He says in just two more verses, the beginning of chapter 2, Thou therefore my son, therefore, because of these things, because of what I’ve already said and because of what you already know, Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. I can only imagine the sorts of things that the earliest Christians went through.

Folks, even before they were throwing them to the lions, even before they were using them as human torches in the arenas, they were already going through persecutions where to identify with the name of Jesus Christ costs something in a very real way. Folks, it costs something in our world to be identified with Jesus Christ, even here in the Bible Belt, because sometimes people will ridicule us, people will laugh at us, our family will think we’re crazy. As much as that may hurt, that’s very minor stuff.

For these people, they were walking away from generations of family tradition, possibly being disowned by their families. Today in this part of the world, people who come to Christ often have their families try to kill them. But he tells them, remain strong.

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Stand for Jesus, stand with Jesus, and stand by Jesus, even when the world around you gets difficult. He says here in verse 2, and this is what I really want us to focus in on tonight, while you’re being strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses.

He refers back to the things, see we can see by the way Paul constantly refers back to the things you’ve heard of me, the things I’ve said that Paul taught Timothy a lot. And he says, the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. This is where we get into really the final stage in these stages of discipleship that I’ve been talking about.

And if you’re having trouble keeping up with what on earth I’m talking about, on both bulletin boards, on one out there in the foyer and one downstairs, I’ve made up a little, I don’t know if you want to call it a poster or a flyer, It gives you kind of a visual explanation of this going from ignorance, complete ignorance of God, complete ignorance of the gospel, on up to what we’re talking about tonight, replication. Kind of gives a visual of the steps involved here and a description of each of those. If you’d care to look at that or would like a copy, let me know and I can get you a copy of that.

But this last step we talk about in discipleship is where somebody says, you know, it’s not just learning and putting into practice the things I’ve learned, as good as that is. It’s not even just being part of the body, as good as that is, and it’s not even just serving as part of the body, as good as all those things are. There’s something more.

I realize that God has called me as a Christian to make disciples, that I should be intentional about investing in other people who are coming behind me and training them to do what somebody trained me to do. I can tell you a story. I will tell you briefly a story of a man who confided to me.

He was not a pastor, but confided to me once that he thought he was a failure in ministry. And you know what? There are a lot of people from time to time who feel like they’re failures.

You know, on occasion when we have six people here on a Wednesday night, I kind of feel like I’m failing. But there are people who feel like they’re failures in ministry because they never attract huge crowds. They never attract dozens of people to the altar in every service.

They never do any of the things that the world looks at, and even sometimes in the churches as we look at and say, what a great, effective ministry that man has. And this man said, you know, I really have never had a lot of people under my teaching. I’ve never seen any big results, never seen any flashy growth.

I mean, I think we’d all kind of like to see that. I would probably jump over a pew. Well, I’d wait until everybody went home, but I’d probably jump over a pew if we had a hundred people here.

That’d be great. But he felt like he was a failure in ministry because his numbers were few. There were no flashy results, nothing big.

He just plod along week after week doing what God had called him to do. But what he couldn’t see because he was too close to the problem was his is one of the most successful ministries I’ve ever seen up close. That out of his teaching, you have people now who are pastors.

And I may have told you this story before because this man who felt like a failure in ministry is my dad as he was teaching a Sunday school class for about seven years and never saw any huge numbers or any flashy results. And I told him, I said, Dad, you’re one of the most successful ministries I’ve ever seen up close because out of his college Sunday school class, he’s no longer teaching. But out of the people that went through his class, you’ve got people who learned to be pastors.

You’ve got people who are now youth workers. You’ve got more Sunday school teachers than I could count. You’ve got people who work in almost every area of ministry in church imaginable.

And not only in the church where he ministered and taught, but also have spread out to other areas. I’m pastoring in Arkansas now. We’ve got people who are faithful members of churches and faithful ministry in churches in the Tulsa area.

We’ve got people in Texas who came up and he will never know the impact that his ministry had on the lives of countless people. Because even though he had small numbers, he took the time to invest in the people under his care and train them and teach them week after week. Not only facts about the Bible, folks, that’s important.

Believe me, it is. But also how to apply those things. How to do ministry.

How to have a heart for ministry and a desire to do ministry. And he trained people to do those things. And because of that, where for many years the church where we went had seen people get out of high school and mostly, mostly drop out of church in the college years, saw a group of kids that in higher numbers than they would have been otherwise are still in church and still faithfully serving.

Folks, that’s discipleship. That’s replication. That’s teaching other people how to do what it is you’re doing.

Folks, that’s not just for a Sunday school teacher, because I know everybody in here doesn’t teach Sunday school. It’s not just for a pastor. It’s for each of us as Christians, because we’re not talking about teaching people how to duplicate particular ministries.

We’re talking about teaching people how to duplicate what we’re doing as Christians. When it comes to learning and studying God’s Word, when it comes to applying God’s Word, when it comes to being part of the body and serving together and finding other people that we can lead to Christ and teach how to follow Christ. Now, everything that’s written on this, and our missions department talks about this a lot, they call it reproduction. That always sounded dirty to me, so I say replication.

It means the same thing. I just don’t want to be talking about reproduction all the time in the pulpit. Replication means showing them what to do that you’re already doing.

And he told Timothy, Paul told Timothy, again, what Paul had already done himself, because the gospel he heard, the teaching he heard, was first and foremost directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. And the words that he had heard from Jesus Christ, and the truth that he had learned from Jesus Christ, he passed on to faithful men like Timothy, who would be able to teach others also. And now he tells Timothy, the things that you’ve heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

I first really became acquainted with this verse when I was applying for a teaching job in a Christian school back home. And the headmaster of the school invited me in for an interview and told me afterwards he thought he was just going to eat me for lunch because I was 22 years old and he said there’s no way. He had very high expectations of biblical teaching and doctrinal teaching.

And he had this list of questions. And he told his secretary ahead of time, he said, there’s no way this kid’s gonna be able to answer my questions. He had issues with me because I was upfront that I did not believe in a universal church.

I believed in a local church. That was part of their doctrinal statement. And I said, but it being a school, it’s not something I have to make a big deal out of.

I mean, we probably can’t go to the same church, but I don’t have to make a big deal out of it at the school. That became an issue for him though. And I was interviewing to teach something like history or government or French.

And he said, see, I have an issue because the Bible says to commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. And he said this universal church thing concerns me. First of all, that doesn’t make me unfaithful.

And second of all, we’re talking about teaching French. When is that going to come up? He doesn’t say commit French to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

And when it comes to, we’re talking about teaching French and I’m biblically sound here. But folks, what he’s talking about is when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to what it means to follow Jesus Christ, we’re to look for people who are hungry for more and we train them to do what we’re supposed to be doing. And ideally, it’ll be a proud day for me.

It’ll be a proud day for me. I know that one day, now don’t anybody get any ideas that I have plans, but I know that one day whether the Lord calls me home or calls me somewhere else or calls me to retire, if he tarries long enough, there will be a day that I’m no longer the pastor here. And you know what?

It’ll be a proud day for me if ministry carries on and continues in the absence of a pastor because we have members here who know the job of Christian believers and do it. And by the way, I’m not saying you’re not doing those things now. But far too often a church falls apart when the pastor leaves or the pastor dies because we’ve been waiting for him to do all the ministry and now he’s no longer there.

Folks, we should all, as Christians and as believers in ministry, we should all be working ourselves out of a job, training up the people who are going to come up behind us. Three points on this real quick before we dismiss, or before we come to the end of the service, rather. When we talk about replication, what we’re really talking about is disciple making.

Not only making disciples, but making disciples who will make other disciples. And a disciple maker, which is what we want to be as faithful disciples, It’s our job to make other disciples, so we’re also disciple makers. I don’t think I could say the word disciple one more time in that sentence.

But a disciple maker, first of all, is faithful to the teachings of Christ. If we’re to make disciples, we first and foremost have to be faithful to the teachings of Christ. You notice he doesn’t say all the good ideas you’ve ever heard, keep those in mind, all this world’s wisdom. No, he calls him to mind, he calls him to remembrance of the things he’s already heard about the truth about Jesus Christ. See, there’s more to disciple making than just teaching life skills. I consider my first ministry to disciple my family, because that’s not my job as a pastor, that’s my job as a Christian, as a husband and a father to begin with.

My job first and foremost is to disciple my family. And as I teach Benjamin, and try to teach Benjamin, try being the operative word, as I try to teach him how to behave, as I try to teach him don’t slam the door, as I try to teach him this is how you use a spoon, As I try to teach him, don’t say okay to me like that. He’s already doing that.

It’s going to be rough teenage years when we get there. As I try to teach Madeline how to not eat dog food. These are important life skills, but they in and of themselves are not discipleship.

Do you see the distinction? Discipleship is on top of that. I mean, I need to be preparing them for life and to be reasonably productive adult citizens.

But discipleship is so much more than that. It’s imparting the truth about who Jesus Christ is, leading them to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior, and then training them to follow Him. So while discipleship is not, don’t slam the door, don’t eat dog food, it is, son, this is what the Bible says about obeying your parents.

This is what the Bible says about any number of things. This is what the Bible says about the cross. I’ve told you before, I was so impressed when he came out of the Wednesday night program and was able to tell me.

I know he doesn’t understand what it means, but he was able to tell me that the cross means Jesus died for me. Folks, that’s discipleship. That’s discipleship.

And disciple making. A disciple maker is first and foremost faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ. It’s not just about leading people on a spiritual journey. I get so sick of hearing all these left-wing churches on their websites talk about, join us for the spiritual journey.

It’s all about the journey. No, because if it’s just about the journey, the journey can be leading you to the wrong destination. It’s about a journey to somewhere, to salvation and spiritual maturity in Jesus Christ. Second of all, a disciple maker teaches others to follow Christ. We teach them to follow Christ. He says here, the same commit thou to faithful men.

The same things, Timothy, that you’ve heard from me about Jesus Christ, take those things and commit them to the men under your care and under your teaching. Take those same things and commit them to others. We’re supposed to train up the people behind us.

to follow Jesus Christ, what it means to be a Christian. The third of all, a disciple maker trains others not only to follow Christ, but to make other disciples for Jesus Christ. Because he says, take these things that you’ve heard from me, commit them to other faithful men. He says, who shall be able to teach others also?

Who shall be able to teach others? We’re incomplete in our job if we are leading people to Jesus Christ and not training them, but we are also incomplete in our job if we’re leading people to Jesus Christ and training them, but not training them to reach others and train them as well. We’re falling down on the job somewhere.

He says, who shall be able to teach others also? One final thought, it’s not in my notes, but one final thought I want to share with you about this. It’s not about a program.

It’s not about a teaching schedule. It’s not about you have to have this much scripture memorized so that you can share, folks, the truth that you already know about who Jesus Christ is. The things that you’ve already learned about what it means to be a Christian, those are the things that you are to take and commit to faithful other people who shall be able to teach others also.

Discipleship can be a scary word, and it can be a scary concept if we think, I’ve got to teach other people. I wouldn’t know what to do if I stood up in front of 30 people. Trust me, sometimes 30 is easier than one-on-one, but still.

I wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know how to handle myself. I wouldn’t know what to teach them.

I don’t know all that much. If you know more than they do, it doesn’t matter how little you know. If you know more than that person does, if you know more than that person does about Jesus Christ, and you have more experience in following Him, then you have something to share.

Ladies and gentlemen, discipleship is not the job of the pastor as the pastor. Now hear me in this before you decide to vote me out tonight. discipleship is the job of the pastor as a christian see we’re not all immune or excused from it because we’re not the pastor it’s our job as christians to make disciples it’s the job of the pastor as a christian to make disciples and as the pastor to equip the rest of you to better make disciples but we’ve got to stop looking on it as though it’s such a hard thing as though it’s such a complicated thing it may be hard at times but as though it’s such a complicated thing and we’ve got to get a class together.

We’ve got to get a group together. Folks, as we go through life and the relationships that are supposed to exist within the local church and with our non-believing friends outside that we can lead to Christ, as we go through the normal course of those relationships, disciple making is as simple as taking someone from where they are and meeting the needs, the spiritual needs, to bring them to where they need to be, which is salvation and spiritual maturity in Jesus Christ.