The Ministry Must Go On

I wonder if you have ever thought about whether or not your faith has a breaking point, or where that breaking point might be. What if following Jesus cost you a friendship, or many friendships? What if it cost you your reputation? If people found out what you believe, maybe it would cost you your career. What if the more faithfully you lived for Christ, the harder your life became? Would you still want to pursue it? Would you still be confident in what you believed? That may be a hypothetical for us, but for millions of Christians around the world, it is a very real existence. There are people in the world right now living in very hostile environments toward the things of Christ and Christianity.

It was not a hypothetical for the Apostle Paul. It was not a hypothetical for Timothy, to whom he writes in 2 Timothy, which is where we are this morning — 2 Timothy, chapter 3. Timothy was living in first-century Ephesus. The Apostle Paul was his mentor. Paul had been imprisoned many times already. The culture around Timothy was unraveling, in a sense. Even the church was being threatened from without and from within. There were false teachers infiltrating the church. There were those, as we looked at last week, who were self-obsessed disruptors attempting to put roots down in the congregation and lead people astray. As opposition grew stronger and more antagonistic, perhaps Timothy began to wonder, "How close am I to my breaking point? Can I keep doing this? The work that Paul is assigning to me — do I have it in me to keep going?"

Now, Paul's answer, if you were to ask him whether Timothy had it in him to keep going, is an unqualified yes. I don't know if Paul loved the opposition, if he got charged up by it. Maybe you have all known people like that — they thrive on conflict, so it is like, "Bring it on." Maybe Paul was gifted in that way. I don't know if that was the case, but in the passage we are going to look at this morning, 2 Timothy 3:10–15, Paul tells Timothy exactly why he should continue on even if the opposition ratchets up and grows more and more fierce. He does not give him rosy optimism. He does not give him a pep talk. But he does give him some unshakable realities that are going to help his faith and his ministry to thrive no matter what comes, no matter what the opposition looks like.

If you are not already there, turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. Let's look at verses 10–15: "You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra — which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ."

What Paul is really telling Timothy — what Paul is encouraging Timothy with in this section, after having just talked about the individuals who are threatening the church and threatening to disrupt and destroy it — is something he established at the beginning of this chapter: difficult times were coming, and those difficult times would primarily revolve around difficult people, people who would threaten and oppose the gospel and attempt to destroy the church. But Paul shifts gears toward Timothy and essentially tells him that when faithfulness gets costly, the truth is what keeps ministry going.

So one of the things he begins with is not a pep talk, but an assurance: yes, Timothy, you can minister through persecution. Paul has laid out the reality of these looming difficulties for his fellow Christians and even for the local church as a body. What Timothy is given, however, is this full assurance that people are going to oppose the truth — like the individuals Jannes and Jambres. If you were here last week, you will recall that those are the names tradition has assigned to the magicians in Pharaoh's court who opposed Moses and Aaron when they were attempting to get Pharaoh to release the Israelites from captivity. The illustration is that there are going to be people just like them who will attempt to oppose the truth and break apart the church in the pursuit of their own sinful, selfish ambitions. But the reality of looming opposition and even persecution does not have to be a deterrent to preaching the gospel and discipling the church.

Paul says, "If you need any proof of that, let me offer up my own life as an example and an illustration." Paul's own life was proof. And Timothy knew it well, because Timothy was a protégé of Paul and had been a disciple of his. As we have mentioned before, Paul even refers to Timothy as his "true child in the faith," viewing him as a spiritual son. No doubt, as they had ministered together along the way, Paul had shared with him not only life lessons but his own personal testimony and his experience of being a Christian — seeking to evangelize others and build churches around the Mediterranean area. No doubt he talked about the glorious receptions he received, the examples of people giving their hearts to the Lord in response to the preaching of the gospel. But he also shared with him the difficulties — the hardships, the opposition, the people who sought to discourage and even destroy Paul.

Paul's life is a great example that ministry not only happens but can thrive under very severe opposition. Timothy had "followed" him — I put that in quotes because, prior to the events at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra that Paul mentions, the two had not yet met. And yet Paul is essentially saying, "You know what my ministry was like." Timothy also knew clearly what Paul believed. He knew his theology. He knew his motives. He knew his heart. That is why Paul shares all the things in the list he gives: "You know my conduct. You know my teaching. You know my aim in life. You know the reason why I am doing this. You know my convictions, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness. You also know my persecutions and my sufferings." Paul was a man so in love with his Savior that he was willing to go wherever God directed him and preach to whomever God appointed him to preach — whether in synagogues, as we were looking at this morning in our equipping hour, or before Roman officials and political figures, Jews, Gentiles, intellectuals, simple people, political rulers, soldiers, merchants, prisoners, jailers — the whole gamut. Paul was willing to share the gospel with anyone and everyone. He would preach on the streets, in the synagogues, in front of tribunals, in people's homes, in the morning, at night, in jail cells, and while under house arrest. And if he could not be preaching, well, he was writing letters to churches to help them and instruct them. He was not simply an evangelist preaching to the lost, but he was also willing to invest time, energy, and resources into helping new believers and even struggling churches to mature in their faith and develop as representatives of Christ in the world.

Paul was fully invested in Christ and His kingdom and the ministry of the gospel here on earth. He was, as we would say, sold out — he had given up everything for this singular focus in his life. And so whatever would come against him, whether from a political direction or from individuals who were simply opposed to the message he preached and were trying to get him silenced, run out of town, thrown in jail, or even killed, that was not going to be a barrier he was unwilling to cross.

What you see in the Apostle Paul's life throughout his ministry is a near-constant reality of hardship and even persecution. He lists for Timothy here three cities, three examples of persecution and suffering. He says in verse 11 that these things "happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra" — three towns, a chain of cities that illustrate the persistent persecution that characterized Paul's life and travels. You can find these accounts in Acts 13 and Acts 14.

In Acts 13, which we actually looked at this morning in our equipping hour, Paul comes to Antioch and goes into the synagogue to preach the gospel to the Jews and to the God-fearers — Gentiles who were practicing the Jewish faith in the synagogue there. But what happens at the end of Acts 13 is that the Gentiles hear that the gospel is for them, not just for the Jews, and they rejoice. They are ecstatic about this good news that salvation through Jesus is for them. And yet, at the end of Acts 13, influential Jews in Antioch incite a riot and drive Paul and Barnabas out of the city. In response to this uprising, they shake the dust off their feet and travel from Antioch to the next city: Iconium. It is worth noting that, in Antioch, there were initially many people so excited and eager that, after Paul's initial gospel presentation, they asked him to come back the very next Sabbath. And when he returned that next Sabbath, nearly the whole town turned out to hear what Paul and Barnabas had to say. And yet those in the city who were opposed were able to raise up a resistance and drive Paul and Barnabas out.

Then they go to Iconium, as recorded in Acts 14. Paul and Barnabas preach the gospel again, and there is a divided response — both Jews and Gentiles are split in what they think about this gospel message of Jesus Christ, the Messiah who died as a substitute for sinners and rose from the dead to bring salvation and justification. Some love it; others do not. A group of opponents begin strategizing to assault Paul and Barnabas, intending to stone them. Paul and Barnabas learn of this plot, and so they flee the city before the mob can seize them. They travel to the next city: Lystra.

But what happens in Lystra? We find out that the people in Antioch and Iconium who were opposed to Paul were so determined that they had followed him — not from one city, but from two separate cities. In Lystra, they incite another mob. This time they do capture Paul, they stone him, and they drag him out of the city and leave him for dead, believing they have killed him. Paul was not dead, though — just to let you know.

So would we say that Paul's ministry was a failure? In these three towns, he goes and preaches the gospel, and in the first town a group runs him out. In the second, a group tries to stone him but he escapes. In the third, they grab him, stone him, drag him out of the city, and leave him for dead. How many of you would be saying, "All right, I am done. No more gospel preaching for me. No more evangelism. I am just going to live a quiet, simple life — me and Jesus, my Bible, my chair in my living room, my reading light, my cup of coffee. It is just going to be me and Jesus from here on out." Or how many of us would say, "That was a complete disaster — a failure. Three cities, and in every city there were people who hated us so much that they were literally following us just to do harm to us."

Well, turn to Acts 14. I want to read a few verses and let what Luke tells us determine whether Paul and Barnabas's ministry in those three cities was truly a failure. In Acts 14:19 we read: "But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed."

What we learn in this section is that in every one of those cities, there were converts. People became Christians through the power of the Holy Spirit as a result of the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. And so Paul and Barnabas doubled back to strengthen and encourage them and to help establish churches in those cities — churches with elders leading them. No, Paul would say the ministry was not a failure. In fact, it was a success in every one of those cities, in spite of the opposition.

And remember, he is encouraging Timothy with this. "Timothy, in every one of these cities, in spite of all that happened to us, the gospel went forward and bore fruit. There were people who believed. There were people who repented of their sins and put their faith in the work of Jesus Christ for salvation. And there are churches that were planted there as a result of it. So, Timothy, if you wonder whether the gospel can advance in the face of opposition, let this one episode from my life — an episode filled with opposition and persecution — be an example to you of the results that can happen even when people all around are fiercely set against it." Hatred toward the gospel and fierce adversarial reactions do not have to be the end of gospel ministry.

And we might say, "Yeah, but we are talking about the Apostle Paul here. He wrote nearly half the New Testament. He is a predominant figure in the early church with what seem like almost supernatural abilities. Isn't he sort of the exception to the rule?" Paul would almost anticipate that objection, and he would say, "No, I am not unique." In fact, look at 2 Timothy 3 — what does he say? "All who desire to live godly lives will be persecuted." And there are two contradictory dynamics that establish this reality for Paul.

The first is the trajectory of godliness — this desiring to live godly lives, this pursuit of sanctification, this progressing in a life that reflects and glorifies Christ, this lifetime of obedience to God and His revealed Word for the sake of magnifying the glory of God. If that is the trajectory of your life, you are on an intercept course with opposition, hostility, and hatred. That is what Paul is saying. If you want to live a godly life — not godly according to your own standards, not godly according to a book you found at the Goodwill, but true godliness as revealed in His Word — your life is on a collision course. It is like going up the down escalator: people are coming at you and you are working really hard to get up. That is real fun when you are a seven-year-old — "This is great!" — but when it is your real life, it is not so fun.

So there is that one trajectory: you are desiring Christlikeness, you are on this pursuit of righteousness as you surrender to the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, you are desiring to glorify God with your life. Then there is the contradictory dynamic: the descent of the opposition. Look again at 2 Timothy 3 — Paul tells us that part of the problem is not just that we are desiring to live godly lives, but that, as he says in verse 13, "evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." The rest of the world is not on a neutral plane. Paul says many people are on a perpetually downward trajectory — going from bad to worse — and the catalyst for this cycle is that they are both deceiving others and themselves being deceived. It is a perpetual motion machine going farther and farther, deeper and deeper into spiritual chaos. And Paul says, "This is not just a me thing, Timothy. This is going to be true for everyone who pursues Christ with their life. Every faithful Christian should expect and anticipate opposition."

So maybe you wonder, as you sit here in Dixon, California — if Paul is correct, why does the persecution not seem very bad where you live? I mean, the worst you can expect in Dixon is somebody yelling at you or saying some mean things because they do not like what you believe. For Paul, that would have been water off a duck's back. That would have been no big deal — a daily occurrence. "Oh, you said something mean about me? Okay." I think there are three possibilities for why that is.

The first: God is being gracious — or merciful, depending on which direction you are looking at it. He is essentially rescuing you by sparing you, if only for the moment, from that level of severity of hostility for your faithfulness to Christ. Yes, there are people who are not fans of Christianity. Yes, there are people who will yell at you, scream at you, try to get you kicked out of Starbucks or whatever. But it is not on the scale of what we see in Paul's life. We could simply say God is being gracious to us, and that it is not as bad as it could be.

Second, it could be that the wider culture where we live is simply earlier in the process of this descent from bad to worse. We can look around the world and see places where Christians are very much opposed — where to be a Christian in public is to invite arrest, and in some places even execution. Perhaps the opposition in Dixon, or in this area of California, has not fully devolved to the level of hostility toward Christianity that exists elsewhere. There are plenty of warning signs in our culture, though — not so much outright hostility to Christianity as a slow attempt to suffocate it, a slow and subtle crumbling of the culture.

And then there is a third possibility: perhaps you are not representing Christ quite as well as you think you are. What I mean is, maybe you are not experiencing any real hostility because people around you do not even know you are a Christian. They would not recognize Christ in your life. They do not have a problem with you because you do not look like Jesus. You do not act like Jesus. You do not represent the things that Jesus represents. You hide your Christianity so well that if you asked your co-workers, your neighbors, whoever — "Do you think I am a Christian?" — they might say, "What? No, you are just like me." Maybe that is part of the problem. There are no Christian loopholes that allow you to say, "Yeah, that stuff is for Paul and Timothy, but I can do my own thing my own way, and it is fine because that is the way I like it."

So, how do you — if you are someone like Timothy and Paul is trying to build you up for ministry, even in the face of difficulty — how do you give yourself that kind of assurance? What is it that you lean on? Well, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy that he is to be dependent on God's Word. That is going to be the source of his strength. That is what will give him the ability to go through life, experience opposition, hostility, and persecution as Paul did, and still have the confidence to go out and do it again and again, day after day, with great joy. It is the Word of God.

Paul says, look at verses 14 and 15 of 2 Timothy 3: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."

Timothy learned, first, through observing faithful Christians. Paul says, "You know who you have learned it from." These were not people who taught Timothy "do as I say, not as I do." Paul is saying you can look at the people who taught you the Christian faith and see that they were not just hearers of the Word — they were doers of the Word, to quote James. These are people who lived what they taught. Their lives are a testimony, and he was not just talking about himself, although he would certainly be one of those people. There were people who lived consistently with what they taught Timothy. And two of those people, we learned earlier in 2 Timothy, were his mother and his grandmother — 2 Timothy 1:5. Timothy had this faithful legacy of godly women in his life who invested in him by teaching him the gospel, teaching him about Christ, and teaching him the Scriptures.

For those of you who are newer to Christianity — who were not raised by godly mothers and grandmothers, for whom the Lord brought faith into your life later — this should be an encouragement that spending time with godly people and letting them invest in your life is going to be crucial for your continued development in the faith. This is why investing time with those who are older — not necessarily in age, but in spiritual maturity, longer in the faith — can be invaluable for those who came to Christ in their teens or adulthood.

I also think it is beneficial — and I personally benefit from this — to read Christian biographies. You can get a window into the lives of people you have never met and see how the Lord used His Word and various circumstances to grow them and to use them. You can read about how throughout history believers endured hardship, how people gave up everything for the sake of being obedient to the call of Christ. One of my favorites, not very well known, is this book right here: William Grimshaw of Haworth. The man is very interesting, in part because he became a Christian when he was already a pastor — which right there is unique. He was essentially an alcoholic all through seminary and his first couple of years of ministry, until he was saved. He was willing and able to minister in a very poor community. Haworth is well known now and is something of a tourist attraction because it was the hometown of the Brontë sisters — and if you know anything about English literature, those are significant names. But Grimshaw endured lifelong hardship and poverty to preach to a village known for poverty, death, and disease. Well past when they should have, the village still had open sewers running down the streets. So it was not a luxurious life. And yet this man was something of a bulldog. In his biography, you learn that he was a short, stocky, rough-and-tumble man who would go into the pubs on Sunday morning and drag people out to bring them to church — because they were already getting drunk by Sunday morning. Anyway, I am rambling a bit, but I love this book. The man's life is a remarkable testimony of faithfulness in the midst of poverty and very significant opposition to his ministry. Biographies help us learn what it looks like to remain faithful, whether or not we have had the luxury of being poured into from a young age.

So Timothy learned by observing the lives of faithful Christians, but he also learned by being specifically taught the Bible. That is what Paul says — that from a young age, Timothy was acquainted with the sacred writings, with Scripture. From childhood, he knew them. He had been given a great gift by being faithfully taught the Scriptures from childhood by his mother and grandmother. They left him a legacy of biblical literacy. When it comes to living a godly life in Christ Jesus, there is simply no substitute for knowing the Bible. You will never find — and you can write this down, take it to the bank, put it on one of those betting apps if you want, the odds will be in your favor — you will never find a strong, mature Christian who has no time or use for the Word of God. The more you know, the more you desire to know. That is just the way it works.

So, parents: in your Bible, circle those two words — "from childhood" — because those two words are pointing directly at you. You are the ones who have the opportunity right now to be just like Timothy's mother and grandmother and invest in your children by teaching them the Bible. You have more opportunities than anyone else to teach them the Scriptures. You cannot save your children's souls. You cannot determine the course of their lives. But you can teach them the Bible. You can help them to learn and apply what is found in its pages. And you should never feel as though you have missed so many years that it is too late. That may be true in some sense, but you still have time now. Now is as good a time to start as any.

I also love that in this passage, as Paul is talking about the importance of the Word of God in sustaining Timothy and his ministry, there is this harmony of instruction: there were the parents who were diligent to teach him from a young age, but there is also no insistence on going it alone — because there were other godly people, the Apostle Paul being one of them, who invested heavily in the life of the church. Godly Christians in the local church can and should mentor young believers, gladly and intentionally, supporting and supplementing what is being done in the home. That is clear in this passage.

So I want to circle back to those who would say, "But I was not raised in a Christian home," or, "My kids are already grown and out of the house." You and they still need the same thing: a steady diet of the Word of God. You and they still need the same thing: modeling and spiritual support from solid Christians. And you and they still need the same thing: committed attachment to the local church. So whether you have not had the gracious gift of those things from a young age, or whether you were not a believer when your kids were young, or whether you were a believer but did not fully understand the responsibility before you — we all still need the same things. So continue to pursue them, or begin pursuing them right now: a steady diet of God's Word, modeling and scriptural support from solid Christians, and a committed attachment to the local church.

Paul is telling Timothy, in other words, that he can and should stand firm for Christ even under persecution, because he has learned it and he has believed it. He had the knowledge — he understood what the Bible says. But he also had the faith. He trusted it. He believed it. He had entrusted his eternal future to the promises of God. The gospel of Christ — the fact that we as sinners before a holy God stand condemned unless someone does something for us — is exactly what Christ addressed. He stood in our place when He was nailed to the cross. He rose from the dead and has ascended victoriously, and those who put their faith in that will be saved. That is our foundation and the beginning of our life in Christ. And then there is this whole life ahead of us of learning and living for Christ and His kingdom.

So if you are looking for some application from this section of Scripture, Paul would say: first, anticipate persecution. It may not be in your life right now, but anticipate it. Do not soften your Christian witness just to avoid it or delay it. Second, lean on God's Word. Learn it and let it shape the way you live. And third, teach others about the Bible. Help them to understand it. Pray that they will trust it. Show them how to be directed by it.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, I thank You so much for the Apostle Paul and his faithfulness. I thank You for his investment in the life of Timothy and, through that investment, in the life of the people of the church in Ephesus — for Paul ultimately wrote to Timothy because he cared about them; he wanted that church to be on solid footing. And we thank You that this word Paul delivers to Timothy is not just for Timothy but for us as well, that we can learn how You would have us live and thrive in a world that does not care much for Christ or the things of His kingdom. How we can be bold in the face of persecution. How we can thrive in ministry and be filled with joy even when those around us are quite antagonistic toward us. Pray that You would make every one of us faithful followers of You, and that we would, in being obedient to Your call and Your commands, do great things for You in the power of Your Holy Spirit and Your Word. We thank You for all of this, and it is in Your name we pray. Amen.