Inheriting the Gospel

Perhaps just two verses this morning, from 2 Timothy 1:13–14:

“Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in”—sorry, I turned two pages over in my Bible—“that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”

Father, we pray that you will make the Book live to us, that you will show us yourself within your Word, that you will show us—show me myself, and show me my Savior, and make the Book live to me.[1] And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, I thought it might be fair just to introduce these two verses in this way. When Paul writes, as we saw yesterday in 2 Timothy chapter 3—again, when he says, “You have followed me, you’ve seen me do this, you’ve seen me do that,”[2] and so on… When he writes to the Corinthians, he actually puts it just in a phrase, and the phrase is straightforward. He says, “Follow me as I follow Christ”[3]—so that the pattern of the progress of Paul is to be at least a helpful pattern that can be imitated by those who follow him.

And it makes perfect sense for us, on a morning like this, to remind ourselves that each of us is under construction. I just recently saw that Ruth Graham, Billy Graham’s wife, has on her tombstone—it simply says, “End of Construction—Thank you for your patience,” which seems to be a remarkably humble statement and in keeping with who and what she was.

It’s very important, too, that our theological underpinnings for what we’re doing are in place. And so when we say these things—that we are under construction—we’re saying them because the Bible makes it perfectly clear. As somebody has said, “You can never lead souls heavenward unless you’re climbing yourself. You needn’t be very high up, but you must be climbing.”[4]

And so, for example, in Romans 8, everybody knows verse 28. Not everybody remembers 29, but there we’re told that we were “predestined to be conformed to the image of” the Lord Jesus Christ—that that is God’s eternal purpose for us: to be made more like Jesus. When he writes to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 3, he says the eternal purpose of God is for us, as we make our way through life, an existential reality, because—2 Corinthians 3—“we … are being transformed into [his] image.”[5] And when John writes in 1 John 3, he makes the point that when we see him, “we shall be like him.”[6]

And I think that it must have been something along those lines that Ruth Graham had in mind when she put that on her tombstone. There’s going to be something on our tombstones as well, and the work that we’re doing today and the lives that we have privilege of interacting with today are contributing to what that might be.

“The Pattern of Sound Words”

And with that in mind, to our verse, or our two verses: “Follow the pattern of the sound words.” “The pattern of the sound words.”

Anytime I see that adjective “sound,” I only think of one person. I met this little man in the Highlands of Scotland, in a place called Strathpeffer, a long time ago when I was young. He seemed very old then, although then he was younger than I am now, so I don’t even know how to work it out. But his name was T. S. Mooney. He was a bank manager in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He was the leader of a boys’ Bible class, which he led for fifty years of his life. He was a remarkably gifted little man and very, very humorous.

And the reason I think of him is because he invited me to speak at the Londonderry Young People’s Convention—which was remarkable in itself, because what was this old guy doing with all these young people? But they loved him. And every day, in a Methodist church in Londonderry, every evening, we would gather. We would go in a room, such as some of us have done earlier back there, and we would pray. And he would pray very vehemently that God would help me and bless me and so on. And then we would go, and I would stand up, and I’d look out. And within relatively short order, he was asleep. He was in, like, the third stages of anesthesia. And I thought, “Well, he’s an older man. You can’t rebuke an older man.” But by Wednesday, I couldn’t stand it. So I said to him, I said, “T. S., you come in. You pray. Then I preach. You fall asleep. What’s the deal?” He says, “Well, it’s just like this: I wait to make sure that you’re sound. And when I know you’re sound, then I just go off for a little sleep.”

Now, what he meant by that was that the sound words of Jesus—because you have this in 1 Timothy 6[7]—in the sound words of Jesus, they’re not certain words of Jesus, but they are at the truth of the gospel that is found in Jesus; and that when we think of what we are conveying to people in the opportunities of a ministry like this, it’s very, very important, if I may say so, that we don’t confuse our ability to tell people about the benefits of believing the gospel or warn them about the dangers of rejecting the gospel and, in doing so, actually never tell them the gospel at all—that we tell them the amazing story of what God has done in Christ to save us from sin and from Satan and from hell.[8]

And since Paul is going to move on, his young mentee—he says, “I want you to make sure that the pattern that you are following is the pattern of sound words.” You know, he says to him elsewhere, “Continue in what you have learned, because you know those from whom you have learned it and how from infancy the Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.”[9]

So, “Timothy, you had a great start. You’re doing good. I’m about to leave. Don’t make a hash of this! Make sure that you do exactly what I’m encouraging you to do, and that is follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me.”

Words are powerful:

 If all that I say
 In a single day,
With never a word left out,
 Were printed each night
 In plain black and white,
It would make strange reading, no doubt.

 And then just suppose,
 Before my eyes close,
I should read the whole record through.
 Then wouldn’t I sigh,
 And wouldn’t I try
A great deal less talking to do?

 And I more than half think
 That many a kink
Would be smoother in life’s tangled thread,
 If half that I say
 In a single day
Were to be left forever unsaid.[10]

It’s a particular challenge to those of us who use words as our trade. “Let not many of you become teachers,”[11] said James.

The Person of Jesus Christ

That’s the pattern, and his focus is on the person: through faith and love in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ.

It’s Calvin who says, you know, all that Christ has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ.[12] But in Christ, not only are we new creations,[13] but, as Paul says elsewhere, the fullness of the—Colossians—the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in the Lord Jesus, and we are complete in him,[14] so that Paul is reminding Timothy of the reality of all that has become his in the Lord Jesus Christ—all that we could ever want, all that we could ever long for, all that is granted to us in the wonder of his amazing grace.

Faith, trust! Trust. What are you trusting? In whom are you trusting? Are you trusting and then faltering—like the story of the fellow who was going along the road in Ireland carrying a huge, big sack of potatoes, and the farmer came along in a trailer. And he says, “Well, why don’t you get up here and just ride on the back of this with me, and that’ll help you”? So the fellow got up, and off he took. And the farmer looked around, and he still had the sack of potatoes on his shoulders. And he said, “Well, what are you doing?” He says, “Well, I didn’t want to put any undue weight on your wagon.” He was Irish!

So, trusting Jesus—I mean, the story of the Christian life is essentially: God is saying, “Will you trust me?” I mean, Matthew 6:33, paraphrased, we could say God says, “You take care of my things, and I’ll take care of your things. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness—that’s my things—and all the rest will be added unto you.”

And so Paul is concerned that Timothy will be continuing to trust: “Will he trust when I am gone?” If you think about 2 Timothy, you realize that at this point in history, the transition is going to be from the apostolic to the post-apostolic church. From a human perspective, there is no guarantee that there would be a church after all the apostles are gone. And people might have looked around and said, “What are we going to do when all these guys go?” And so Paul is greatly concerned.

The story of the Christian life is essentially: God is saying, ‘Will you trust me?’

Transitions are vitally important. And I don’t know the nature of your ministry, but that’s the real question. You could be flying high right now, and in fifteen years from now, your centers could be selling carpets—if you deviate from the pattern of sound words and from the faith, the love, that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

My Lord, what love is this
That pays so dearly
That I, the guilty one,
[Should] go free?[15]

“This is love,” says John. It’s “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and [gave] his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”[16]

You know, when you think about that in terms of what I watched yesterday in the video and the loneliness, the sense of emptiness… And it’s no surprise. Some of us were talking last night, and we mentioned the fact that young people are actually growing up, at the present time, tempted to believe three big lies. And lie number one is that there is no personal creator God. Lie number two: There is no absolute morality. And lie number three: There is no ultimate truth. And so, they find themselves without God and without hope in the world,[17] and often living not in Loveland, Texas, but in loveless Texas.

And so, the Timothys that come along—’cause this letter is to Timothy and to all the Timothys and Miss Timothys, if you might put it that way, who are coming along—“Make sure, Timothy, and all who follow you, that you follow the pattern of sound words that are inscripturated for us here in the Scriptures, in the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus.”

The Power of the Holy Spirit

So, the pattern (the sound words), the person (the Lord Jesus), and the power (the power of the Holy Spirit): “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us…”

I couldn’t help, last night, but think of the—as I listened to Kirk, I think of the first time that I ever saw an American football game. I went there because the girl that I wanted desperately to spend a lot of time with was going there, and so I was there. (And incidentally, that’s the girl that I’ve spent the last fifty-one years of my life with, so relax.) But I’d never seen anything like it in my life. I think I was seventeen years old. It was in an air force base in Bushey in Hertfordshire. And I don’t know whether it was the air force team or the opposing team that was doing its thing, but it was fascinating on multiple levels.

And there were cheerleaders! I’d never seen that before. And as a seventeen-year-old boy—despite the fact that I was very keen on this girl that I was with—I said, “Wow, cheerleaders! That’s interesting. I’ll pay attention to that!” But they only had one cheer that I remember. They kept going like this: They’d go, “You can do it! You…” And they were American, so it must have been the air force. “You can do it! You can do it! You can! You can! You can do it! You can do…” I’m like, “This is ridiculous.” Because the further the game went and the more lopsided it became… I mean, what was the greatest comeback last night? From thirty-three points down? That was nothing compared to what was going on in Hertfordshire. I mean, it was out of control. But still they continued: “You can do it! You can do it! You can! You can!” Yeah.

Let me tell you what I’ve discovered: It’s when I know that I can’t do it, then I start to make the discovery that God does do it. And that is, of course, what is so vital for Timothy. And that is the vital nature of it in relationship to Paul himself. The good mentor is never actually trying to foist on their mentee, like, an idea that they got somewhere or a notion that they’d like to be true or a story that is not their story. No, we can only really lead souls heavenward if we’re climbing ourselves.

And, of course, classically, Paul made this great discovery. And if you think about the life of Paul—Saul of Tarsus—goodness gracious! What an immense capacity this fellow had! If you think about how much he talks about how important it is to be humble and to humble ourselves and to think of ourselves and so on, you’ve got to believe that he’s talking to himself so much. He has to be!

So, he has a thorn in the flesh, and he asks the Lord to remove it. And the Lord says no. And the Lord says, “Listen, my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And he gets it. And he says, “Well then, if that’s the case, I will glory all the more gladly in my weakness, for when I am weak, then I am strong.”[18]

You see, if dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage. You don’t say, “Help me!” unless you need help. You don’t reach out to steady somebody unless you recognize that they’re going to be the beneficiary of your steadying hand. And the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is so fundamental, isn’t it? In fact, without the Holy Spirit, we’re not even believers at all. And it is the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

If dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage.

That’s why when Paul issues these exhortations to Timothy, you’ll notice (and this is true of the New Testament letters as a whole) that the imperatives are always preceded by the indicatives—that what is actually true forms the foundation for the exhortation to live in the light of what is true. So, for example: “You then, my child, be strong.” What possible help is that? “You then, my child, be [strong]”—or “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”[19] The indicative is that the grace is ours in Christ Jesus. The imperative is “Be strong.”

“But I can’t be strong.” Oh, yes, you can be strong! “Well, which part of it is the strong part, and which part of it is the weak part?” They’re both together! “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God [who is at work] in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure”[20]—by the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to become what we are.

Religion encourages people to become what they’re not. And so when all you have is a form of moralism—“Do this, do that, don’t do that, don’t do that, try and fix yourself,” and so on—you either become really arrogant, because you think you’re good at it, or you become really depressed, because you know you can’t do it. And that’s why the gospel is the gospel. It’s so good! You think so? Okay.

So… Yeah, I was thinking about it the other day and reading Acts, when the man is healed at the Gate Beautiful. And Peter says, “Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you: In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk”[21]—which must have been a real gutsy play by Peter, I’m going to tell you. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. He knew he could preach. We’d done that. But this is a big one! I wonder: Is he going to come up or not?

I found it very interesting. This is eyewitness… This is Luke, the good doctor, writing Acts. It actually says—you can check it in your Bible—and so he says, “In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” And then he just doesn’t stand back like this and go, “Okay. Go ahead.” No. The text actually says, “And reaching out his right hand, he picked him up.”[22] He didn’t pick him up; he picked him up. But he picked him up as he reached out his hand. We’re just hands. We’re just feet. We’re just who we are. God is at work.

“You can do it! You can do it! You can! You can!” You can’t! Of course, we balance that by “I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.”[23]

Incidentally, I come to my last point, but I have to tell you about T. S. Mooney. Because he was a funny little man. I asked him one day, “Why were you never married?” And he says, “Well, it’s like this: In my case, the desirable was always unattainable, and the attainable was undesirable.” I said, “I think you just answered the question as why you’ve never been married.” And quick as a flash, he followed it up by saying, “I’d rather go through life wanting what I don’t have than having what I don’t want.” That explains why you’re a bachelor at the age of eighty-three!

But here’s the thing: fifty years as a bachelor, caring for all those boys. And I thought about it yesterday when you were speaking about the—that you gave all those… Yeah! Good stuff. So I asked him, “What are you doing with these boys?” He said, “I want every boy in my class to have a Bible in his hand, a Savior in his heart, and a purpose in his life.” That was the mentor.

The Protection of the Good Deposit

The pattern of sound words, the person of faith and love in Jesus, the power enabling us by the Holy Spirit, and the protection—I needed another P, just to put it in there—the protection that he is to engage with: “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” “Guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”

The gospel which is placed into your hands. The gospel which is timeless—an unchanging gospel for changing times. There’s nothing new about the heart of man. There’s nothing new about the hearts of boys and girls and young people. By nature, every child born is a potential juvenile delinquent. And some actually go on to become emblems of that, and others are saved by the interventions of others. But it seems to me that you are at the very heart of things. And in the relay race of life, it’s the privilege of each of us who have been entrusted with the gospel to pass it safely into the hands of the generation who will come.

So, we don’t want to become “weary in well doing.”[24] This is not a few hundred-yard sprints; this is a cross-country run that lasts for the rest of your life. Eric Liddell won the 1924 gold medal in the four hundred meters in the Olympics in Paris, as you will remember. When they came to ask him afterwards how he’d managed to do that since he was training for the hundred meters, and yet in the four hundred meters, he made a new Olympic record, a new world record… Remember, he says to his sister, “I know God made me for himself, but when I run, I feel his pleasure, because he also made me fast.”[25] And the Edinburgh Evening Post said, “How did you do it?” This is what he said: He said, “I ran the first two hundred meters as fast as I could. And then, with God’s help, I ran the second two hundred meters faster.”

In hundred-meters terms, I’ve got about three yards left in front of me. Almost without exception in this room, we’ve got more runway behind us than we have in front of us. So let’s keep on.

Lord, hear our cries. Meet us where we are. Fulfill your purposes in us and through us, we pray. And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] R. Hudson Pope, “Make the Book Live to Me.”

[2] 2 Timothy 3:10 (paraphrased).

[3] 1 Corinthians 11:1 (paraphrased).

[4] W. Walsham How, Lectures on Pastoral Work: Delivered in the Divinity School, Cambridge, 1883, 2nd ed. (London: Wells Gardner, Darton, & Co., n.d.), 113. Paraphrased.

[5] 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV).

[6] 1 John 3:2 (ESV).

[7] See 1 Timothy 6:3.

[8] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 95.

[9] 2 Timothy 3:14–15 (paraphrased).

[10] Grace W. Castle, “Suppose,” Christian Century 29, no. 3 (January 18, 1912): 16. Paraphrased.

[11] James 3:1 (paraphrased).

[12] John Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1.

[13] See 2 Corinthians 5:17.

[14] Colossians 2:9–10 (paraphrased).

[15] Graham Kendrick, “Amazing Love (My Lord, What Love Is This)” (1989).

[16] 1 John 4:10 (NIV).

[17] See Ephesians 2:12.

[18] 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 (paraphrased).

[19] 2 Timothy 2:1 (ESV).

[20] Philippians 2:12–13 (KJV).

[21] Acts 3:6 (paraphrased).

[22] Acts 3:7 (paraphrased).

[23] Philippians 4:13 (ESV).

[24] See Galatians 6:9 (KJV).

[25] Chariots of Fire, directed by Hugh Hudson, written by Colin Welland (1981). Paraphrased.