The Centrality of the Word in Discipleship

Second Timothy and chapter 4, and I read from verse 1:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. … As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

“For I[’m] already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Amen.

A brief prayer:

Father, we humbly pray that by the Holy Spirit, you will take the truth of your Word and plant it deep in our hearts so that we might both understand and trust and love and follow and share the wonder of the gospel. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, having been given, or charged, if you like, with the responsibility of addressing—and here’s the quote—“The Centrality of the Word in Discipleship,” I have determined that it is legitimate for me to go both this evening and then on the two occasions that I have tomorrow morning to 2 Timothy. Because there is a sense in which the verses that I have just read—certainly the first five of them—give to us an encapsulation, if you like, of the apostle Paul’s commitment to the ongoing ministry of the gospel. And I suppose what underpins the way I’m approaching this tonight is a central conviction along these lines: that if you have discipleship in the pulpit, you have a greater opportunity for discipleship in the pew. But the two things must inevitably flow from the same source in terms of the impetus of the Holy Spirit by the direction of Scripture.

And I share the conviction of my friend Christopher Ash when he says the regular expositional teaching of the Bible is “the driving force that shapes authentic church life.”[1] The regular exposition of, the teaching of, the Bible is the driving force that shapes, then, the expressions of authentic church life—that multiplicatory dimension which runs throughout his letters.

We need to understand, too, that from a human perspective, there was no guarantee that this fledgling church of which he had been a part would be around for another generation to come. This is the transition point between the apostolic church and the postapostolic church. And therefore, it is no surprise that in writing what is essentially his final letter, his swan song, that he is at pains not to cover vast swathes of church life—because he doesn’t—but to make sure that he passes on to his young lieutenant, Timothy, these absolute essentials.

The time, he says, has come for his departure. The word analysis is the word that would be used for the weighing of an anchor or the unyoking of an ox. And there is no terror in the approach of Paul here. There is no bemoaning anything. His focus is entirely on the future, and especially as it relates to Timothy.

Now, I want to frame this by just three words that all begin with C to help me remember, and perhaps you can remember too.

The Charge

And the first word is the charge that he gives to Timothy. The charge.

And I want you to notice that it is, first of all, a solemn charge. There’s nothing casual about it. There’s nothing particularly inspirational about it. There is definitely nothing inconsequential about it. It is, if you like, along the lines of the old church notice boards, certainly in the UK, where it gave not only the times of the services, but it announced to the passing population that here in this building, the vicar would be prepared to conduct the solemnization of marriage. The solemnization of marriage—that it is not to be entered upon lightly or carelessly, but thoughtfully, with reverence for God, with due consideration of the purposes for which it was established by God,[2] and so on.

And that is the dimension that is here in this letter as Paul conveys it to Timothy. He exercises—that is, Timothy—his ministry with the Father and the Son as his witnesses. That’s why he writes as he does: “I charge you in the presence of God,” the Father, “and of Christ Jesus.” When Jesus comes, he’s going to judge the living and the dead. And the appearing of the return of Jesus was so uppermost in the mind of Paul, in the way he wrote his letters, and certainly now in the way in which he approaches his death, that it is no surprise. Because what he’s doing is he’s living the now in light of the then. In fact, it is only as we begin to understand that we are prepared for the then that we then have a way to approach the now and to live it properly.

So Timothy is not to be worried about the congregation that he serves—a multidimensional congregation in a time of cluelessness, both confusion morally and doctrinally. But his basic concern is not “I wonder what the congregation will think of me,” or “I wonder how well I’m doing.” No, he says, “I’m charging you in the presence of God and in the light of the appearing of Jesus.”

Those who have impacted the church throughout the years, I think, have lived with the same dimension. Murray M’Cheyne, St. Peter’s Dundee, dies at the age of twenty-nine. But what a lifetime he crammed into twenty-nine years after he understood the gospel for himself! And he gave us the hymn

When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand with Christ on high,
Looking o’er life’s history,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know—
Not till then—how much I owe.[3]

And so he writes to this young man, and he writes in a way that is solemn but also in a charge that is at the same time simple, in the sense that it is straightforward. It’s not hard to grasp. All that Paul has already said, both in his first letter and in the second letter, concerning “the pattern of … sound words,”[4] or “the good deposit,”[5] or “the word of truth,”[6] or “the sacred writings”[7]—all of that underpins what he now says to him in this charge. In other words, there’s no doubt about the fact that it is Word ministry. It is Word ministry. “Remember,” he says, “Timothy, you’ve got a great background. Remember those who taught you this. Remember your teachers, and remember what they said and how the Scriptures have been precious to you even since you were a young fellow.”[8]

You see, because he’s convinced that the Word of God accomplishes the work of God by the Spirit of God—so that powerful preaching is not marked by a style. It’s certainly not marked by histrionics. It is not marked, really, in its essence, in any other way than—not simply being given the responsibility to explain a passage of the Bible with a few helpful, practical points of application. That is not the primary reason for proclamation. It is in order that we might have a divine encounter with the living God through the Word of God by the Spirit of God in a way that is actually life-changing and life-shaping. It’s not simply the passage of information from one person’s head to another group of people’s heads. This is something that is up and out and beyond.

And when we are brought to an understanding of it, then we attend upon the preaching of the Word of God with a great sense of anticipation. We don’t applaud when we think it was good. We don’t hiss when we think it’s bad. The person is a servant of the Word. Nothing’s changed.

And yet what a strange thing it is! Look at all you people sitting there, and me up here by myself—one man addressing a gathering of people from God’s Word. It’s not a Bible study. It’s not a home group. In fact, it’s weird in the contemporary world. But it runs from the very beginning. This is Deuteronomy 4: “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on earth, and that they may teach their children so”—teach them that “the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the … words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”[9]

The primary reason for proclamation that we might have a divine encounter with the living God.

Well, this is bringing coals to Newcastle, really, isn’t it? I mean, you wouldn’t have a conference like this if you didn’t share this conviction. But Gresham Machen reminds all of us who are entrusted with this chance very clearly when he says, “It is with the open Bible that the real Christian preacher comes before the congregation.” (I’m not sure if he would say, “It is with his cell phone that the preacher comes before the congregation,” but that’s just the ramblings of an elderly gentleman saying that.) “He does not come to present his opinions. He does not come to present the results of his research in the phenomena of religion, but he comes to set forward what is contained in the Word of God”[10]—that what God has spoken to the apostles is then bequeathed to us in the Bible. So we are, then, to preach the Word and nothing but the Word.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a Methodist preacher by the name of Sangster on one occasion said we have a real problem, because “preaching is in the shadows. The world does not believe in it.”[11] That was the first half of the twentieth century. I’m not sure that he would say the same thing in the first half of the twenty-first century. Because it’s not difficult, actually, to roam around this fair land and find that preaching is in the shadows; the church does not believe in it.

And that is why a ministry such as is represented by each of you here tonight is so vitally important. The question really remains whether you share the conviction of Ash that I mentioned to you: Do you really believe that the regular expository teaching of the Bible is “the driving force that shapes [the] authentic church life”?

Years ago, when I was still young—and that is years ago—one of my elders took me out to lunch, and he said to me, “You know, I can do what you do.” And I said, “What is it that I do?” He said, “Well, you stand behind a box, and you talk.” And I remember sitting there, thinking, “Does this man actually believe that that is what this venture is about?” Years later, after he had quit being a businessman, he became a pastor in the Carolinas. And now he knows that, yeah, he could stand behind a box and talk, but he couldn’t preach—not until God told him what was involved.

The booksellers have got books there by Christian Focus as well. And William MacKenzie of Christian Focus is ubiquitous at gatherings like this. He was a personal friend of the late John Murray of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. And one day, they were driving in the highlands of Scotland, and the Professor, Murray, said to William, “William, what is the difference between a lecture and preaching?” And William tried a few answers, none of which impressed the professor at all. And he said, “No, you don’t have it at all.”

So then William said, “Then what is preaching?”

He said, “Preaching is a personal, passionate plea.”

William said, “In what sense?”

“In this sense: ‘I beseech you, by the mercies of God, to receive what God has.’”[12]

Now, when that then transfers itself into the life of the high school boy who has begun to benefit from the teaching of his pastor, he then knows that it is God’s Word, God’s truth, that he has to convey to his friends, because that is the life-changing message that will see the good news of the gospel passed from him to his friends, to his colleagues—the same with the college students at every place along the way. And when that happens, then the thing that Downline stands for is actually, absolutely unfolding.

Now, the charge that he gives him here in light of the appearing of Jesus is a charge that is to be undertaken: to “preach the word”—to “preach the word,” “ready” to do it “in season … out of season.” In other words, there’s no excuse for fearfulness or for laziness. If we would paraphrase it, then: “You are to do this, Timothy, when people are hostile or when they’re receptive, when they’re tuned in and when they’re tuned out, when the prospect of Sunday’s responsibilities is delightful or when it is dreadful, when the crowds are growing or the crowds are dwindling.” By its very nature, then, the Word of God does the work: reproves, rebukes, and exhorts. Therefore, it won’t always be comfortable, but it will always be profitable.

And the final phrase of verse 2 is the challenge to all of us, isn’t it? In the exercise of this, he says, you must do it “with complete patience and teaching.” J. B. Phillips paraphrases it, “using the utmost patience in your teaching.” The NIV: “with great patience and careful instruction.” And here in the ESV: “with complete patience and teaching.”

Alas, the presence of that adjective! If it only said, “with a little bit of patience,” “with the odd expressions of patience.” But no: “with complete patience.” Patience is hard, isn’t it? Especially when we’ve got something to say. Especially when we long for the truth that we have to be passed into somebody else’s life. We try and chase it down. Do you remember teaching your children how to ride a bicycle? Were you patient? Were you completely patient? Or did you say things like “It’s not difficult to ride a bicycle. Just hurry up!” Did you ever decide, “Oh, this is not working,” and take the bicycle, and put it in the trunk of the car, and say, “We’ll try this again next week”? I’m sure none of you did—but I did. And I’m not proud of that.

Even as I mention it to you now, I say, “How could that possibly be?” But the same father who was prepared to teach—or failed to teach—his son in that dimension is the same person who then, in responsibility in the teaching of the Bible to the congregation, was tempted to display the same lack of patience in giving people the time to catch up and read up and shape up and go. “A young minister is prone to try to attain by one jump the height which others have reached ‘by a long series of single steps in the labour of a quarter of a century.’”[13]

So the charge is straightforward. It’s solemn. It’s the inerrant Word that he is to preach—when the wind is with him, when the wind is against him. He must do it patiently. He must do it carefully.

The Challenge

And that this is of vital importance Paul then makes clear when, in verses 3 and 4, he goes from the charge to the challenge that Timothy is facing: “The time is coming.” He’s already identified the fact that there have been those who have “swerved from the truth”[14]—that’s in chapter 2—that there are people who have deserted him.[15] And what he’s saying is “They deserted me, and they’ll desert you. And you’re now faced with people who are turning away from the truth, and they’re wandering into myths.”

He actually says, “The time is coming.” The time is always coming. It’s a recurring phenomenon. When I quoted a moment or two ago, from Moses, his word to the people concerning the voice of God, remember: They saw nothing; it was only a word. And you follow the pattern from there, and you discover that within a relative short time, they had forsaken the audible in the quest for the visual. It seemed far more appealing to them to have certain spectacular things or shrines or idols, that they could say to people, “You know, why don’t you come and see all the phenomenal things we have,” as opposed to another boring sermon where one man is explaining and pressing upon the listeners the claims of Scripture. What they did was, instead of bowing before their Creator, they began to manufacture gods who would accommodate them. And so they “exchanged the truth [of] God for a lie.”[16] Because, as Luther said, if a man will not have God, he must have his idols.

So he’s saying to Timothy, “You need to be prepared when the times come to your door where people will not endure sound teaching.” He’s already been exhorted to follow “the pattern of … sound words.” He’s been warned that there are people out there who will teach a “different doctrine”—one that “does[n’t] agree with … sound words,” not the “words of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[17] And instead of awakening, then, to the teaching that is healthy and godly and beneficial and transformative, they go in search of what is intriguing, what is fascinating, what is speculative, and, in many cases, what is spicy—more interested in novelty than in orthodoxy, seeking out teachers who will tell them what they want to hear.

And once again, this is not unique to Timothy’s day. When we read the Old Testament, in Isaiah’s day, we find that the people are coming to Isaiah, and their requests are along these lines. They’re rejecting the instruction not because it wasn’t clear but because it was too clear. They don’t want him to stop preaching. They just want him to preach in a manner that suits their fancy, that accommodates their passions.

Now, this intersects in every generation with certain things, and probably nothing more so in the present time than in the matters of human sexuality. And so I suppose if Timothy were to say, “Well, how would this cut into…” For example, if I’m going to take this seriously in the twenty-first century, in the milieu that we are before, well, you’re going to have to be brave enough to say, “If you were born a man, you will die as a man, no matter what you do to yourself.” And someone says, “Well, you can’t possibly say that.” Well, yes, of course, we can, and we must. The distinguishing features of a biblical Christianity intersect with our entire view of the world—the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of everything. And so, if Timothy is surrounded by people who want to take him in another direction, he’d better be alert.

The same was true for Isaiah:

  They are a rebellious people,
 lying children,
children unwilling to hear
 the instruction of the Lord;
who say to the seers, “Do not see,”
 and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
 prophesy illusions,
leave the way, turn aside from the path,
 let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”[18]

It’s really just an old version of “Tell me lies. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.”[19]

And therefore, it’s no mean thing—no new thing, either—to encounter those who are in search of and proponents of a spirituality that is disconnected from truth. A spirituality that is disconnected from truth. Jeremiah:

An appalling and horrible thing
 has happened in the land:
the prophets prophesy falsely,
 and the priests rule at their direction;
[and] my people love to have it so.[20]

That observation, that condemnation, has application far beyond Jeremiah’s day. It rings with sad and telling judgment—not least of all in my own native land and, I guess, in some measure, too, in my adopted home.

Let’s just imagine that you are a young person now, and you’re sitting under your pastor’s ministry. You’re a young lady about to go and do history at college, let’s say. Your ability to be able to articulate the gospel, to be able to say, “This is the good news; this is what God has done for us in Christ,” is going to be not only related to the books that you’ve chosen to read, but it is going to be directly tied to the formative framework in which you’ve been brought up. And one of the saddest things for me in American church life—and I hope I’d stand on no more toes in this—but is the breakdown of the instruction of children, many of whom are leaving for university, and they’ve never actually heard their pastor preach! Maybe at Christmas.

You can’t have an iceberg in the pulpit and warmth in the pews. There is a direct relationship.

So, I know the children’s ministry is doing a great job, and I know the youth pastor, because I like him. But I’m jealous for the opportunity to impact the lives of these children as they grow. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a direct correlation between the convictions that mark me now at seventy-three and what it was for me as a boy to be twisting the watch off my mother’s arm in the evening service and counting the light fittings and trying whatever way I can to make sense of this dreadful journey.

And yet here I am. Why? Why? Because they knew that it was far better for me to be there than to be anywhere else—that it was far more important for me to be in the church with them than to be on the travel team for baseball. They knew that I wasn’t that good anyway—certainly not at baseball, ’cause we never had it. And I know there are exceptions, but I want to say to the average mom and dad who say, “Well, we’ve got to go, because we’ve got the swim meet, and we’ve got the other meet, and then we’ve got the meet, and the meet,” and so on and everything. Say, “Why are you wasting your time? I saw him play golf. He’s not that good. He’s not that good. You’re spending a lot of money and a lot of energy. Do you care whether he can make a proper backswing, or do you care that he knows and understands the gospel so that when he goes to play golf at—wherever he goes, somewhere good—that the driving force for him will be that?”

But if the pastor is not clear on the charge, if the pastor is not bold in the context, then it’s going to be pretty difficult for the kind of discipleship to flow. I mean, you can’t have an iceberg in the pulpit and warmth in the pews. There is a direct relationship.

The Commitment

That brings me to the final thought, which is: The charge that he gives is a simple one, but it’s a solemn one; the challenge that he faces was unique to his day, but it is not unique; and therefore, it calls for him to step up to the commitment that is urged upon him here by Paul.

“You know, Onesiphorus is one thing, those folks are another thing, but I’m talking to you now, Timothy.” “As for you…” Verse 5. “As for you…” And he gives us four more imperatives that would be a long sermon on their own, but I won’t do that. Four imperatives.

Timothy is entrusted with a tall order—if it’s okay for me to say, with a man-sized challenge, with a realistic statement of what Christian ministry is all about. Because confronted by opposition and isolation, it would be all too easy for him to throw in the towel and to lie down on the grass: “I’m not going to be able to do this without you. You’re my man, Paul. I’ve relied on you.”

And Paul is saying to him, “Don’t you play that game, Timothy. There’s a crown for me, but it’s not unique to me. There’s a crown for all who love his appearing. Do you love his appearing, Timothy? I know you do. Then here, this is what you need to do. There’s no time for self-pity. It’s an opportunity to stand up, face the challenge, be steady, no matter what comes your way. Suffering will come. Keep going.”

Number one: “Keep your head.” That’s the NIV. The ESV: “Always be sober-minded.” I like “Keep your head.” You can choose whichever you want.

The reason he says this is because he’s surrounded by people who’ve lost their heads. They’ve become intoxicated by the heady wine of spurious ideas. And Paul says, “Timothy, you mustn’t succumb to that. They’ve wandered away. They’ve drifted off. And this wouldn’t be a good time for you, Timothy, to put yourself into, as it were, pastoral cruise control, automatic pilot, rest in your laurels, just go through the motions.” Cruise controls are dangerous things, aren’t they? I mean, what happens if you fall asleep on cruise control? “So don’t fall asleep, Timothy. Do not put it on cruise control. You need to stay alert. You need to be vigilant. You need to endure. You mustn’t be susceptible to the speculative notions that are all around you. You mustn’t be unsettled by the numbers of people who are going different places, who are drawn away because they’ve got these great teachers.”

We’ve had everything here in America in the forty-two years I’ve been here. We’ve had the Kansas City prophets, and we’ve had all manner of circuses that have come through. Every time, there’s somebody told me, “Whoa! Here’s the future of the church. It’s this.” It’s “You’ve got to do this, and you do that, and you do the next thing.” I said, “I’m not clever enough to figure that stuff out. I’m just going to do what I know what to do. I’m going to try and teach the Bible in the hope that believers will be strengthened and will be multiplied, and unbelievers will be converted.”

He needs to make sure that he is not intermittently alert, intermittently awake: “Always be sober-minded.” “Always.” The devil—I said earlier, talking to pastors—the devil’s only got a couple of strings to his bow. Either he gives you a fat head and neutralizes you because you begin to believe what people say about you—good things—or he gives you a pinhead by telling you you’re the worst possible person. “And so, Timothy, keep your head in all situations.”

“Endure hardship.”[21] Not a new note! This is what Paul has been saying all along: “Share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.”[22] “This is why I suffer,” he tells him. “This is my gospel, for which I am suffering.”[23] And in Paul’s case, it was certainly physical, as it is for many people throughout the world today who are the followers of Jesus. For us, suffering may be far more mental, far more emotional—although physical may not be far off on the horizon.

The wind—the wind is blowing strongly in the face of Christian orthodoxy. Whatever we want to say about the Cross Con conference and Charlie Kirk and whatever revival you want to say, the world in which we live is vehemently opposed not to spirituality but to the truth of the gospel. No one is concerned if you wear a t-shirt that says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[24] Their big concern is if on the back it says, “No one comes to the Father but through me.”[25] To be able to actually say to our world what is true will bring far more suffering and mental anguish than we realize, because we’re going to have to declare at some point, in public and in private, the Bible’s assessment of humanity—which is what? Sinful, guilty, responsible, and lost.

You can’t go to the average coffee meeting with a few of your friends, and when they say to you, “So what is it at that Harvest Church you go to or whatever else it is—what do they say there? What do you learn about the Bible?”—you say, “Well, we just learn different things. You know, we study, we have coffee, we’re just, you know…”

People say, “That sounds horrible to me. Is there nothing else?”

“Well, yeah, actually, we’ve discovered that before God, we’re sinful, guilty, responsible, lost. We’re part of the walking dead.”

Now, don’t sit by your phone waiting for the invitation to next Thursday’s coffee time on the strength of that.

Timothy, along with Paul, faces accusations, faces insinuations, and so on. “Be strengthened [in] the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”[26]

And thirdly, “Do the work of an evangelist.” I take it that Paul is not suggesting a change of ministry opportunity for Timothy. Rather, he is just reinforcing the fact that in the preaching of the Word of God, we are proclaiming the good news of God. I was greatly helped a long time ago when, in a book called A Quest for Godliness by J. I. Packer, he writes this: “If one preaches the Bible biblically, one cannot help preaching the gospel all the time, and every sermon will be, as [Samuel] Bolton said, at least by implication evangelistic.”[27]

“Do the work of an evangelist.” I’m sure all of us have had occasion to watch sadly as people who were our colleagues and who were apparently on track with this kind of proclamation and discipleship ministry, they deviated from course. Some of them adopted what we might refer to as a ministry of denunciation or admonition instead of mission. Our mission is not admonition. It is the proclamation of the gospel. But it is very easy to deviate from course and get there, cursing the darkness—a ministry that is marked by condemnation or, perhaps as bad as any, a ministry that is now totally corrupted by politicization.

Timothy dare not neglect the ongoing work of the fact that the Son of God came to pay the price for our sins, that he now offers to clothe us in his righteousness and to present us faultless before him in eternity. As Calvin says, that is the only safe haven, “in the mercy of God, as manifested in Christ, in whom every part of our salvation is complete.”[28]

Our mission is not admonition. It is the proclamation of the gospel.

And to quote Murray before I leave you, in his statement concerning the passion for mission—or for evangelism, or even, we might say, for this dimension of discipleship—that is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the gospel. (How good to be led in song, and so helpfully, by the things we’ve been singing tonight!) This is Murray:

It is on the crest of the wave of divine sovereignty that the unrestricted summons comes to the [weary] and [the] heavy laden. This is Jesus’ own witness, and it provides the direction in which our [own] thinking on [this subject] must proceed. Any inhibition or reserve in presenting the overtures of grace [offering people Jesus in the free offer of the gospel] should no more characterize our proclamation than it characterize[s] the Lord’s witness [himself].[29]

So, “Keep your head,” “Endure hardship,” “Do the work of an evangelist,” and finally, “Fulfill your ministry.” Finish the job. Keep going. “Discharge all [your] duties.”[30] Carry out to the full the commission that he’s given you.

In secular Greek, that verb sometimes denotes the fulfilling of a promise or the repaying of a debt. Timothy had made a big promise when the elders had laid their hands on him and he was ordained.[31] And that is the great promise, as well, in pastoral ministry. He also was indebted to Paul, just as we—each of us tonight—are indebted to those who led us to Christ, who nurtured us, who continue to encourage us, who continue to pray for us, who continue to inspire us, who do for us what is so desperately required in all of our lives, no matter how long we’ve been running the race.

Running the race is, of course, part of the metaphor of Paul’s own usage. And I was talking with somebody last night, and they told me that they ran the marathon here in Memphis. And I was struck by that. I thought, “That’s very good.” In conversation, somebody said, “Do you run?” I said, “Well, you know, I have. I’ve tried it.” I said, “But I ran cross country at school.” And I said, “In our thing, there was the group that immediately went out front. You could never keep up with them. Then there was a big wad in the middle that you were tempted to try and stay with. And then there was my group, just at the back. And every so often, somebody would drop back from the middle group, back to the poor souls. And the reason they would drop back is to say, ‘Come on! Come on! You don’t need to be back here. There’s a whole journey ahead of you. Step up, and keep going.’”

And that’s essentially what Paul is doing here. Jesus, as we know, in paying a debt that he didn’t owe, kept his promise to the Father, who in turn promised him the nations as his inheritance.[32]

What it will be like to finally be in the company of Paul and Timothy! All kinds of things will happen, you know, that—you know, you’ll find out that you didn’t do a very good job of expounding 2 Timothy 4. Paul said, “No, that wasn’t what I meant when I said that.” But we’ll be able to handle that, because we’ll be made new.

But for the time being, let me just close with the reminder that comes out of the world of missions, out of the world of multiplicatory ministry:

Facing a task unfinished
That drives us to our knees,
A need that, undiminished,
Rebukes our slothful ease,
We who [resolve] to know thee
Declare before [your] throne
The solemn pledge we owe [you]
To go and make [you] known.

[And] we bear the torch that flaming
Fell from the hands of those
Who gave their lives proclaiming
That Jesus died and rose.
Ours is the same commission,
The same glad message ours;
[And] fired [with] the same ambition,
To [you] we yield our powers.[33]

Father, let it be so. Out of all of these words, we long to hear the voice of Jesus. We’re all so very different—different places and backgrounds. And you tailor the truth of your Word to our lives—young, old, rich, poor, keen, sad. Thank you that you have many of your children on a very long leash. And we pray that those who are stragglers at the back may, as a result of this Downline ministry, not only join the company in the big middle group but might run steadfastly the race set out before them, looking to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.[34] For we ask it in his name. Amen.

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[1] Christopher Ash, Remaking a Broken World: The Heart of the Bible Story, rev. ed. (The Good Book Company, 2019), 71.

[2] The Book of Common Prayer.

[3] Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “When This Passing World Is Done” (1837).

[4] 2 Timothy 1:13 (ESV).

[5] 2 Timothy 1:14 (ESV).

[6] 2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV).

[7] 2 Timothy 3:15 (ESV).

[8] 2 Timothy 3:14–15 (paraphrased).

[9] Deuteronomy 4:10, 12 (ESV).

[10] J. Gresham Machen, introduction to J. Marcellus Kik, The Narrow and Broad Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1934).

[11] W. Edwin Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Construction (London: Epworth, 1949), 1.

[12] Romans 12:1 (paraphrased).

[13] William M. Taylor, The Ministry of the Word (New York, 1876), 4, quoted in Iain Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939–1981 (1990; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2004), 458. Murray’s quotation of Taylor differs slightly from Taylor’s original.

[14] 2 Timothy 2:18 (ESV).

[15] See 2 Timothy 4:10, 16.

[16] Romans 1:25 (ESV).

[17] 1 Timothy 6:3 (ESV).

[18] Isaiah 30:9–11 (ESV).

[19] Christine McVie and Eddy Quintela, “Little Lies” (1987).

[20] Jeremiah 5:30–31 (ESV).

[21] 2 Timothy 4:5 (NIV).

[22] 2 Timothy 1:8 (ESV).

[23] 2 Timothy 2:8–9 (paraphrased).

[24] John 14:6 (paraphrased).

[25] John 14:6 (paraphrased).

[26] 2 Timothy 2:1 (ESV).

[27] J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 169.

[28] Calvin to Jacopo Sadoleto, Basel, September 1, 1539, in John Calvin, Tracts Relating to the Reformation, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844), 1:42.

[29] “Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 1, The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 82.

[30] 2 Timothy 4:5 (NIV).

[31] See 1 Timothy 4:14.

[32] See Psalm 2:8.

[33] Frank Houghton, “Facing a Task Unfinished” (1930).

[34] See Hebrews 12:1–2.