Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
August 7, 1983
The Disciplined Christian Life
2 Timothy 2:1-7 (NIV)
What should be the ultimate goal of this church? You might think - to get people saved - but you would be wrong. The ultimate goal of this church is to make disciples of people. Many times when people are saved, they slip back into a carnal or unspiritual way of life. We don't like to think that it happens but our experience and the Bible itself tell us otherwise. Turn to Philippians 3:18-19. Speaking of backslidden Christians, Paul says:
"For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.
He is talking about Christians who are undisciplined, who choose loose living instead of obeying Christ's commands. We all know of Christians who are hypocrites. They turn people away from Jesus - they are enemies of the cross.
It's not enough to be saved, to have asked Christ into you life at some time. God's purpose for this church is to make nonbelievers into Christians and Christians into disciplined disciples. 2 Timothy is the last letter Paul wrote before a sword severed his head. He knew he was about to die and he doesn't waste words with his young assistant, Timothy. He wants Timothy to preach the whole gospel and to keep the church from getting watered down by soft Christians. Our passage today brings this out strongly. Paul begins by saying:
"And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."
What are the things Timothy heard from Paul? He is not talking about last-minute advice or some sermon. He is talking about the true gospel that was preached by the apostles.
The essence of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins just as the Old Testament prophecies said he would. When people repent of their sins and ask Jesus to make them clean and acceptable before God, they are saved. To show God we are grateful for saving us, we should lead a life that is full of concern and love for others, a life that stays away from sin and corruption. It is this message that Timothy is supposed to commit to faithful men. The Greek word for faithful is pistos - it has a rich variety of meanings. A man who is pistos is a man who is believing, a man who is loyal, a man who is reliable. All of these meanings are here. Leaders in the church must be so committed to Christ and to his gospel that no threat of danger or persecution will lure them from the path of loyalty, and no false teaching will cause them to stray from the narrow way. They have to be rock-solid, bold in the way they live and the way they think.
The task doesn't stop with these leaders. Paul says they must be able to teach others also. In my opinion this is what distinguishes a disciple from an ordinary churchgoer. Disciples reproduce themselves many times over, just like the good seed in Jesus' parable that produces one hundred more seeds. You might say that discipling is more important that witnessing. If you lead one person to Christ each year, at the end of ten years there would be eleven Christians, yourself included. If you disciple one person per year, so that each of you can disciple someone the next year, in ten years there would be not eleven but one thousand twenty-four Christians. This concept of discipling is so important that the Navigators, a worldwide evangelistic ministry, bases its strategy on it.
Paul is speaking primarily to leaders in the church but the principle is true for all Christians. According to 1:5, Timothy himself was discipled by his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois. It's a privilege to receive the Christian faith but it is a duty to pass it to someone else. Every Christian must look at themselves as a link between two generations.
Unfortunately believers tend to rely on others to carry out this duty. It's easy to expect the preacher or your Sunday school teacher to do all your discipling. But there aren't enough of them. It's also easy to rely on the past accomplishments of others. Sometimes people tell me they are Christians because their grandmother was a pillar for God. What I want to know is this - will your grandchildren be able to say the same thing? Will they be able to say that they came to Christ because of your influence?
We not only rely on others to do the work but we also tend to underestimate the church's task. At the turn of the century born-again Christians thought they had America wrapped around their little finger. Conservative Christianity was pretty much the national religion and believers were in positions of power and authority. Twenty years later it all fell apart. Many Christians discovered that their churches and denominations were not controlled by faithful men but by liberals who denied the truths in the Bible. Denominational conventions turned into battle zones to see who would gain control. Preachers were so eager to attack each other that one newspaper reporter suggested building a special stadium so people could watch the theological bloodshed. Conservative evangelicals lost the battle. (100,000 left-our denomination, the American Baptist Churches.) Whereas in 1900 conservative evangelicals were a dominant force in American life, by 1930 we were considered the lunatic fringe.
Sound doctrine is not something that can be taken for granted. This year the Southern Baptists have had to fight to keep liberalism out of its colleges and seminaries. For once, it looks like conservatives have turned the tide back to the Bible.
Each generation must be discipled. This involves institutions but it is especially true of individual believers. We have to know what the gospel is and take it to those who haven't heard it. Are you a discipler? Are you building up Christ's church or tearing it down?
Paul gives three illustrations of what a disciplined disciple is like. First, a disciple is like a good soldier. Paul says:
Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs -- he wants to please his commanding officer.
Both a soldier and a disciplined Christian have to have single-minded devotion to their commander. My brother called up last night from Ft. Benning, Georgia, where he is taking paratrooper school. To teach them how to jump out of planes they take them up a 45-foot tower, attach them to a wire that angles down at 60 degrees, then throw them off the tower. Instead of rolling when he made it to the bottom, he tended to smack, then bounce. Since he wasn't doing it right, they threw him off that tower twelve times. My brother wanted to watch TV or take a nap but he had to obey his commanding officer.
The soldier is a soldier and nothing else. The Christian must concentrate on his Christianity. This doesn't mean that we have to quit our jobs and families. We still have to live in the world and make a living. But it does mean that we must use every opportunity to show that Christ makes a difference. We have to have the single-minded dedication of a soldier.
Second, we have to have the discipline of an athlete. Verse 5 refers to athletic contests like the Olympics (ancient Greece had several variations of these games). Paul is talking about professional athletes, those who dedicate their whole life to the sport and earn their living by it. He says they have to compete according to rules, which probably refers to the oath athletes had to make before competing in the Olympics. In this oath, they promised that they had spent at least ten months in intense daily training.
Christians have a form of training as well which is what spiritual disciplines are all about. A discipline is something you can make yourself do, like prayer, reading the Bible, meditating and witnessing. I personally have found that reading the Bible on a regular basis is the most important discipline in my Christian life. Soon after I became a Christian in high school I began to read at least three chapters of the Bible every day. I still do it, as does Celeste. I have found that it is best to read systematically, a book at a time, instead of grabbing a chunk here and there. When I read scripture I discover the truth of Hebrews 4:12:
"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
If you feel pretty satisfied with your relationship with Jesus, you're probably not reading enough in the Bible. Make it a discipline, along with the other spiritual resources like prayer. Olympic athletes never miss a day of training because they end up soft. Don't be a spiritually flabby Christian.
Finally, a disciplined Christian must be like a farmer. Paul says:
"The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops."
It's hard work to be a farmer and there's a certain amount of work in being a Christian. Salvation itself is free - you can't earn it if you worked a million years at "time and a half." The work I'm talking about is the work of ministry. There is the mundane work - it takes thirty-five people to operate the committees in this church, not to mention the nursery, children's church and choir. There is also the personal Christian work, like visiting someone who's sick, or encouraging a friend or helping out someone who's laid off.
I find that the hardest work of all is working at godliness. For every Christian virtue you cultivate there will be three despicable sins lurking in your old nature. We have to work at killing the old self and letting Christ rule supreme in our lives. This may mean working at breaking an addiction that overpowers you. Or maybe you're treating someone in a way that Christ wouldn't approve. All of us have a habit or relationship that needs to be straightened out if we are to be close to God. Work at it, just like a farmer works in his fields.
One thing remains in all three illustrations:
The soldier is encouraged by the thought of final victory.
The athlete is encouraged by the vision of a crown.
The farmer is encouraged by the hope of the harvest.
Each of them submits to the discipline and the toil for the sake of the glory which is still in the future. It's the same way with the Christian. The Christian struggle is not without a goal - it is always going somewhere.
The Christian can be certain that after the effort of the disciplined Christian life, there comes the joy of eternal life in heaven.
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Typed on February 28, 2007, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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