Stay the Course: The Hardships of Discipleship - 2 Timothy 2:1-7

6:01If EBC is to grow, we have to consider two key realities in this particular text. We have to recognize that God has rules to bring about church growth. Now, when I talk about church growth, I'm not talking about necessarily a bunch of numbers, a bunch more people coming through our doors. Although, if God wants to expand our ministry with more people, that's wonderful. But what I'm talking about is church growth within ourselves, within our own lives. Are we growing in Christ? Well, there's rules for that to grow. Secondly, recognize the church growth is associated with rewards. Isn't that interesting? The whole idea of rewards. Let's consider each one of these as we drill into it. So, the first reality check that we must consider is that we have to recognize that God has rules to bring about church growth. Rules. You can see it in the section that we're going to study here. Let me just read verses 1 through 3 one more time just to make sure we're clear. He says, You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ. Well, what are these rules? Well, there are rules. There's three of them. Let me put the three up there. Three rules for church growth. You can see, number one, it's be continually strengthened. In the grace that is found in Christ Jesus. It's right there in verse 1. You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Now, in the original language, when they read this, it was a continually be strengthened. And it was to be strengthened by that grace that is found in Christ Jesus. So that's the first rule that we want to consider this evening as we delve into the text. We think about it. Some of us go to the gym to strengthen our bodies. Some of us stay home to strengthen our bodies, go for walks or what have you. Our bodies get stronger or increase in strength in the Lord. But in verse 1, this strength is found in a particular location, this kind of strength that we get from the Lord. You can see it in the text. It's right there in the latter part of verse 1. That location is the grace that is found in Christ. In other words, if you want to be strengthened in the word, strengthened through Christ or in Christ, it comes by his grace. The grace that is in Christ. God wants us to be fit for service through his grace. Paul's emphatic with Timothy here. He mustn't be like the people in chapter 1 who turned their backs on Paul. Now, what do I mean by that? Let's look over at chapter 1, just a few verses over. I'm going to read from verses 15 through 18 and sort of get the flavor of what Paul is talking about here with Timothy. He wants him to be strengthened, and he says, don't be like this guy, but be like this guy. That guy. So here it is. Verse 15. You are, he says, aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phagellus and Hermogenes.

9:12Kids, be thankful your parents didn't give you those names. Verse 16, he says, The Lord grant you mercy to the house of Onisiferus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. So on the one hand, you have two guys, right? Two guys, Phagellus and Hermogenes, that turned away from Paul. And there's another guy whose name is Onisiferus. And he encouraged Paul while he was in chains, even. Verse 17. But when he was in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and he found me. The Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you may know very well what services he rendered to me at Ephesus. So he wants us to consider not to leave Paul behind or not to leave the ministry behind, but he wants us to be those who are like Onisiphorus. Timothy needs to be like Onisiferus, who is not ashamed of Paul's chains. Paul's in prison, right? He's writing this letter. He's in prison. Well, why is he in prison? He's in prison because he proclaimed the gospel of Christ. That's the laws that he broke, even though it wasn't really a law that he broke. They just didn't like what he was saying. And we found that this guy, Onisiferus, was serving. Paul. He found Paul, even in his imprisonment, and he faithfully served him. You're going to see that discipleship is often analogous to suffering and hardship, the kind of suffering and hardship in the text that athletes and soldiers and hard-working farmers have to endure. That's what discipleship is like: it's hard work. You don't get to just open a pamphlet and go, oh, this is how it works, and go on your merry way. There's work that's involved with discipleship. You would say that these professions, these athletes, these soldiers, and these farmers, these professions require very dedicated, hard work and continuous conditioning. They have to be in shape to do their jobs.

11:16I've never been on a ranch, but for you Texans, I understand it's a pretty hard place to be. I would love to go. Anyone have a ranch? I want to go sometime. Pat? No ranch? It's on my bucket list. But I'm sure that they suffer in a lot of the things that they do. Now, 2,000 years ago, they didn't have the kind of tractors that we have. This was hard, back-breaking work, and so he compares discipleship with those kinds of people. Many of you have served in the armed forces. Armed forces take a lot of conditioning, hard work, to protect us in the homeland. Thank you for those who have served.

11:57As an athlete, former athlete, you Probably couldn't tell by looking at me anymore, but as a former athlete, I know what it's like to work hard as an athlete, to be at the top of my game. Stitches, broken bones, dislocated knees, and teeth knocked out. I tell you what, I know what an athlete is like. They suffer hardship, and that's what the idea is here, is to suffer hardship as a disciple of Christ, as to make disciples. Jesus says that Paul was his chosen instrument to bear his name before Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. You know what? That was in chapter 9 of Acts. And then in chapter 9, verse 16, he says, I'm going to show Paul how much it's necessary to suffer for my namesake. I'm going to show him how much it is necessary, required to suffer for my namesake. Remember that Paul had just received orders to extradite Christians from Damascus to Jerusalem, 135 miles away, and he was going to oversee their death. And yet Jesus saves him on the road to Damascus. He says, I'm going to show him how much it's necessary to suffer for my namesake. And he makes him a missionary, a discipler, such as the world has never seen. Paul expected to suffer, so we shouldn't be shocked if we're suffering for Christ's sake. In fact, he said at the end of his life, right here in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, he says, indeed, all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will. Be persecuted. That's discipleship. There's a cost to pay. As a good soldier of Christ, you must be prepared to suffer hardship. The only place that you'll find endurance through suffering and hardship is in the grace that is found in Christ in verse 1, right? There's grace to be had in this suffering that God brings to us through Christ, grace meaning unmerited favor. You should recognize very quickly in verse 1, if you look at it, verse 1, that Paul's instructions stem from a very tender heart.

14:04He doesn't have his thumbnail on him or his thumbprint on him. He's got this tender form of addressing him, but it comes in the form of a very urgent command. When my children were very little, I wanted them to recognize in a crowd of people that if I wanted them right away, there was a noise I would make, and they would know to come to me immediately without making any questions. And it was a whistle. My daughter's name is Erica, and now I have a retainer here, so it's hard for me to whistle, but it sounds something like this.

14:36And I could whistle that very loud, not the way I just did it, but she would know if she was anywhere within 100 yards that dad was looking for her. I'd do my son that way, too. And so it was this tender command. They knew not to break that command, but it was a tender way of getting their attention. And this is what Paul is doing with Timothy. He is tenderly getting his attention and saying, Timothy, this isn't easy work. You're going to have to work as hard as an athlete, as a soldier, as a farmer, Timothy. And so the same message is for us. Paul, out of this love, was tender yet forceful, and he tells them to keep on increasing in his strength by taking full advantage of the grace that is found in Christ alone. Well, the question, if you turn to 2 Timothy 4, as you're turning there, the question is, how do we receive strength necessary to endure this kind of hardship that Paul is talking about, this kind of suffering? Notice how Paul, in 2 Timothy 2, 4, notice how Paul receives strength from the Lord when he faced vigorous opposition. 2 Timothy 2, 14 through 18, he talks about some vigorous opposition, but notice where he gets his strength. Verse 14, he says to Timothy, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for here it is. He vigorously, vigorously opposed our teaching. He's saying, Timothy, when you come to this area, you're going to run across this guy, Alexander the coppersmith, and he's going to vigorously oppose you too. Verse 16. At my first defense, no one supported me, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them. This coppersmith, this Alexander, was so vigorous in his persecution, nobody came. To Paul's rescue. They're like, I don't want any of that. I don't want to be associated with that. I'm just going to run.

16:37Verse 17. He says this, but the Lord stood with me and did what? He strengthened me. Why? So that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. What a word picture. He refers to this guy, Alexander the coppersmith, as a lion, like he was chomping at him already. The Lord rescued him, the Lord strengthened him. Verse 18, the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and he will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Indeed, all those who are serious about Christ will be persecuted. But he says he'll be faithful to the very end. That's comforting to know. Your strength comes to you from the Lord through the grace that is found solely in him back in 1 Timothy 2.1.

17:37I take great comfort in this, great comfort in this. Unlike you, there are times when I'm absolutely spent or fatigued or worn out, exhausted in doing what Christ has called me to do, spent just to see that God's people are equipped with the truth. You're spent from work or whatever it is you do, there are times when you're exhausted, but Christ is the one who. Who strengthens? So when we're spent, when this happens, we must come to the realization that our strength is only found in the unmerited favor, that's grace of Christ. We must follow the rules and go to him for his grace, which is the only thing that will strengthen us to endure us for the rigors of shepherding God's lambs.

18:24Just as you were saved by his grace, you must live within the bounds of his grace. You know what our prayer should be? I wrote it down so I wouldn't get it wrong. Here's what our prayer should be in this text. Lord, I come to you to be strengthened by your grace. And Lord, if you don't strengthen me, I can't suffer the hardships of a soldier of Christ, a good soldier of Christ. And I won't be a participant in the growth of your church. This is hard work, he's saying.

18:52I was once a competitive water skier, and I had my fair share of really nasty crashes and injuries. And I remember my father, my dad, he was my number one cheerleader, and he used to give me these very encouraging words. And he says, Eric, if you're not falling, you're not learning. If you're not falling, you're not learning. And I remember those wise words so many years later, if I'm not making mistakes, I'm not going to grow. I'm not going to get better at it. And so I'm thankful for my dad for telling me those things. And that's kind of what Timothy is facing here. He needs to go through some spills. And Paul's going to encourage him. The word of God, as he grows. In the Lord, will encourage him.

19:33Christian, the rule number one, for church growth means that entrusting God's Word to others requires that you take the personal responsibility to keep on growing in Christ, to spend time in the Word of God, to open it daily and read, and to spend time in prayer. There's a second rule for church growth. Believers must entrust Scripture to other qualified believers. Here it is in verse 2. This is really a key verse in the whole chapter here. He says, The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men, here it is, who will be able, that means capable, capable of teaching others also. This rule for church growth is clear. Timothy was to teach everything that he'd heard from Paul to other people. That's a tall order, isn't it? That's a huge tall order. But he has to do that. This is really the ultimate fat verse, isn't it? Faithful, available, teachable. He's saying, Timothy, be faithful to me. Be available to me. Be teachable. Teach everything I taught you. In verse two, he is to teach what he heard in the presence of all witnesses. In other words, Timothy, teach my agenda, not yours, he says. If you teach your agenda, then there are many witnesses who heard you in the presence of you. In your presence, they heard what I said to you, and they're going to keep you straight. They're going to hold you accountable. That's why we can't just come up here and preach something that's not God's Word. You have it in your hands. I just can't come up here and preach something that I want. As pastors, we don't get into the pulpit every Sunday and teach some man-made, as my old pastor used to call it, sermonette for Christianettes.

21:25It's true, isn't it? We have God's Word. Why would we waste our time on silly things? Things that are designed to placate everyone's felt needs or address the latest societal or social ills. We must resist the temptation to dumb down God's word to somehow make it more relevant for people. God's Word is relevant, it is relevant. You just have to pick it up and read it, relevant for people who are repulsed by the gospel. I once had a very close working relationship with a very famous children's ministry, and their key verse was 2 Timothy 2:15, just a few verses down. You can see it there right in your text. What does it say? It's their key verse: Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, or accurately handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 is a great key verse for any ministry. The only problem. With this particular children's ministry, is that whenever anything was taught outside of what they called the gospel, it was called a secondary issue from their perspective. Well, there are no secondary issues in the Bible, they're all serious issues, but they would not want people to teach anything but the gospel. And yet, verse 2 shows us that teaching everything in the Bible is fair game, it's all relevant.

22:55This rule requires that we entrust these teachings to faithful men who will be able or capable to teach others also. In this case, Timothy must be about teaching other faithful people to teach still more faithful people. We know from chapter 4 that Paul wants Timothy to join him in Rome, and that's important. He wants him to join him in Rome, so he's preparing him to prepare others to take his place in the town of Ephesus. He can't go to join Paul in Rome unless more people are discipled up and trained to train other people.

23:34You want to know something like Timothy? God may not want you to move away from Emmanuel Baptist Church, but if he does, if you think he does, then you need to be preparing for that move here. You need to be discipled, learning God's word, and then discipling others here. Why go overseas if you're not doing that kind of discipleship here? Notice in verse 2, again, that God wants to entrust these teachings to faithfulness. Faithful people. Well, first off, I guess we'd have to really define what does that word entrust mean?

24:07What does he mean by entrust? Entrust means to give something over to another person for safekeeping. You've given your house key to somebody, you trust them. If you've given your car keys and your house key, you've entrusted them with it. Right? It's in good hands, I promise. So you've entrusted them to him. And I think about that word and trust. There's a few examples I'd like to call to your attention. Entrusting something to somebody else for safekeeping. What kind of examples do we have? Did you know that Jesus used this word and trust as his last dying words on the cross? Luke chapter 23, verse 46. He uses this word in trust, only in our English, it's a little bit different. I'll tell you when we get there. You'll probably recognize it. He says this: Luke writes, And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. It's the same word. I entrust my spirit. He's dying on the cross. He says to his father, last words, I entrust my spirit to you, Father.

25:17I want those to be my last words. Wow. He entrusts his spirit. He trusts his spirit to the Father. As you're suffering for Christ, Place your life in his hands for safekeeping. Is there any safer place to entrust ourselves than into the Father's hands? There's another example for entrusting something to another person. It's found in 1 Peter 4, verse 19. I'll just read it. He says, Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall, actually must, entrust their souls to who? A faithful Creator, because it's right to do.

26:04Just as Jesus entrusted his Spirit to the Father on the cross, we must also entrust our souls as we entrust the scriptures to others for safekeeping. That's why we want to entrust them to people who are capable, reliable, faithful, available, teachable to give to others. We can trust to who can be trusted to keep God's word safe. That's a question. Who can be trusted to keep God's word safe? Well, Paul gives us three characteristics in the text there. It's faithful. It's qualified, meaning able or capable in and of themselves to teach others. In other words, he's saying, look for people who in and of themselves will be able to teach other people, Timothy, when you're not there to hold their hand. That's the idea of discipleship.

26:54This applies to everyone or anyone who teaches anything at Emmanuel in order to be. A member at Emmanuel, you've got to be saved, right? In order to teach an Emmanuel, you have to be a member. And in the near future, we're going to go through a discipleship process. If you want to teach anything in Emmanuel, you have to go through this process so that we're all on the same page to accurately teach what we've learned to others also is the idea. So just because somebody's faithful, just because somebody's qualified or capable to teach others, doesn't mean that it's going to be a bed of roses. It's going to be hard. It's going to be downright difficult, is what we see in the text here. Which brings us to our third rule for church growth. Here's the third rule. As Christ's ambassadors, you will suffer hardship. That's a factual statement, he's saying. You will suffer hardship.

27:50Look at chapter 1, verse 8. He's going to talk about this suffering of hardship. Verse 8: Therefore, Timothy, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God. And in verse 12, for this reason I also suffer these things, but I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

28:23Chapter 3, verses 10 through 12. You've heard a little bit about this, but let me just put it in context. Verse 10. Now, you followed my teachings, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and perseverance, persecutions, uh-oh, and sufferings such as happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord, what? He rescued me. And then he says, indeed, all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

28:54And then we read in chapter 2, verse 3, our text for this evening, suffer hardship with me, Timothy, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Suffer hardship with me. You say, but how? What is this hardship like? Paul says it's a kind of a hardship that is analogous, as we said earlier, to the good soldier, to the athlete, and to the hardworking farmer. It's hard work. But as any good soldier, there's suffering that goes on. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 11. If you're going to suffer, if you want to take on this bill, this life, and look like or act like a good soldier of Jesus that Paul was, then it might be important for us to know what kind of suffering that Paul went through. Because he's saying to Timothy, suffer like me. Well, we read in 2 Corinthians 11, starting in verse 23. Let me just read through this. This is the kind of suffering this man went through. Jesus says, I'm going to show him how much it's necessary. Supper. Well, here he is looking through his rearview mirror, and here's the suffering that he suffered. Starting in verse 23 in 2 Corinthians 11, he says, Are they servants of Christ?

30:10I speak as if insane, aye, more so. And far more labors, and far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. You know why 39? Because the law meant 40. And if they went to 41, they'd break the law and be subject to the lashes. So they stopped at 39 just in case they made a mistake. Five times, this is the kind of lashing that he went through. It was a leather called a cat of nine tails, and it had bones and metal at the ends of it. It would fillet your skin off your backside. He did that five times. He says, three times I was beaten with rods, think bamboo kind of sticks, and they were sewn together in a cylindrical sort of a look, and at the end of it was a hard piece of metal. He was beaten with these rods. Once I was stoned, he said. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at the sea, dangers among false brethren. In other words, people who made you think they were Christians, but they were false brethren. Verse 27, I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger, thirst, often without food and Cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is this daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who was weak without my being weak? Who was led into sin without intense concern?

31:45And then he, verse 32, he says, In Damascus, the ethnarch under Eratas, the king, was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me. The king was trying to get a hold of him. This is the kind of suffering he went through. So when he says, Timothy, I need you to suffer like me. It's like, sign me up, right? No wonder Timothy was timid. He says, Timothy, don't be timid. Don't let people look down on your youth. Turn back to 2 Timothy 2:3.

32:14I want you to see here that the word soldier also appears in the New Testament as a military fight. It's a war. Or as military service in the New Testament. So in light of what we've just read in 2 Corinthians 11, this makes a whole lot of sense. As a good soldier of Christ, Paul battled many opponents. In keeping with Acts 9:16, he definitely showed them how much it was necessary to suffer for his namesake. Well, so there's three rules, three rules for church growth. We must be strengthened through God's grace, through Jesus' grace. We must entrust Scripture to qualified people, and Christ's ambassadors will suffer hardship. Well, we said that there. There's two things that EBC needs to be thinking about in terms of church growth, two realities. Here's the second one. Recognize church growth is associated with rewards. Isn't that interesting that he would put suffering and rewards in the same context? That's in verses 4 through 7. You're going to see three rewards associated with these three professions: the good soldiers, right? The athletes that follow the rules, and the hardworking farmers.

33:29First in line is the good soldier. Do you see it in verse 4? Notice what a good soldier doesn't do in verse 4. Good soldiers don't get all caught up in daily affairs of life, do they? They're in the battle. They're out for the battle. Think of Uriah the Hittite when he was out in the battle and called back, and King David wanted him to spend time at home. He's like, no, I want to go be with my fellow warriors. We're in battle. I'm not going to get caught up in the affairs of daily life. I was reading a guy named Thomas Lee who commented on this section of Scripture. I like the way he put this. Here's what he said on this text. Paul's appeal shows the importance of developing an ability to distinguish between doing good things and doing the best things. Servants of Christ are not merely well-rounded dabblers in all types of trivial pursuits, they are tough-minded devotees of Christ who constantly choose the right priorities from a list of potential selections. Paul prohibits. The loss of a single-mindedness and the longing for an easy life for Timothy. And by extension, us as well, I'm sure. If you were in a military battle, if we were in a military battle, we would do everything we could possibly do to ensure success for the safety of our fellow soldiers. But most of us are so wound up with these worthy causes that Lee mentioned that we have no time for the most important causes, which is verse 2. Verse 2 is the most important cause. That's why he's addressing this to him. We find ourselves rushing from one activity event or ministry event, not us specifically, but church people, or civic activity to another. We're busy people. We dash off to the next one, and years later, we wonder why the church in America isn't growing, or the church around the world isn't growing. We're caught up. We're busy people, all right. We wonder why Jesus' lambs aren't shepherded. Where's so-and-so? I haven't seen them for a while. That's what shepherding is all about. So Paul paints this soldier picture to help us come to grips with the fact that we're in a spiritual war where every life in the church is at stake. Paul's command is clear: Christians mustn't allow anything to stand in the way of entrusting what they've been taught so that they can entrust it to others who will do more. Notice the second reason. It's in part two, or second reason. Second part of verse 4, actually, uses the word please there, so that he may please the soldier who enlisted him.

36:09That's the prize, by the way. God's pleasure is the prize. Your prize is the pleasure of Jesus, your commanding officer. A good soldier doesn't allow the activities of lesser importance to keep him from winning the battle and pleasing the officer who enlisted him. Neither do faithful Christians allow lesser pursuits to prevent them from pleasing Christ. Well, there's a second reward, a second reward, and it's associated with another profession, the athlete, in verse 5. In verse 5, athletes have the ability to win the prize. Their ability to win that prize is conditional on something, isn't it? It's obeying the rules. They've got to obey the rules. In other words, if you want to win the prize, obey the rules, otherwise, your hard work will mean nothing. All that practice, and you're disqualified. There's plenty of rules in athletics. They work hard, they practice hard. Olympians will practice for years and then make a mistake on the field because maybe they didn't practice hard enough. So it's hard work.

37:10And you've got to obey the rules. And I put in my notes there, unless, of course, you're the New England Patriots, the Chatriots, right? And you've got deflated footballs, then you get off the hook. I digress. Well, the athlete obeying the rules analogy is in keeping with Paul's plan for the church to grow. The plan for church growth, again, is verse 2. That's the plan. If you were to look at verse 2, you would see that he is to teach all things. All the scripture is fair game. Entrust this to faithful men who will be qualified and capable to teach others also. Well, there's a third reward associated with another profession, and that's the hardworking farmer. Glance down at verse 6. In verse 6, it's the hardworking farmer. Here's what it says. The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. I don't know why the English translation put the word ought there. It's must. The hard-working farmer must be the one who takes from his crop first to feed his family. He's been working hard. Take from the first part of the crop. You see, farming was different 2,000 years ago than today.

38:21I found no record. You want to know something? I found no record of farmers getting tax subsidies to support not growing crops. They were hard, hard workers. They weren't paid to not grow something. So Paul's analogy in verse 6 is clear. He's not using just any kind of farmer as an example for a hardworking Christian. The example he uses is of this hard-working, bare-bones, hard-working, in-the-dirt farmer. It should be clear by now that soldiers and athletes and hard-working farmers are those who suffer hardship.

38:59Working hard. Hard. What does it mean in verse 6? It means striving. It means struggling. Soldiers and athletes and farmers toil to the point of exhaustion because of their chosen profession. It's not easy, but the rewards can be enormous, can't it? Think of athletes around us today who work hard. Their incomes are significant. So it makes a whole lot of sense that lazy farmers who don't have crops, they don't feed their families. Why? Because they didn't spend the time to work hard.

39:30A lazy Christian who doesn't do verse 4, the believer who doesn't entrust God's words to others, will not receive the prize either. You should notice that Paul doesn't spill a lot of ink on this soldier, on this athlete, on this farmer idea. As I said earlier, it all comes down to verse 7. He wants us to go back and think about it, just like we have in verse 7. He says, Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding and everything.

40:01He says to Timothy, and by extension, us as well, to think about what he just said, because he will give you understanding. He'll help you think about it. So, all that to say, just like a few Sunday nights ago, God is looking for, and I thank the ladies for this, faithful, available, and teachable people who will be able to train up others to teach others as well, qualified leaders to teach others, who will in turn. Turn, be able to teach others even farther down from them.

40:34As our discipleship process rolls forward at Emmanuel, please be praying that the Lord would do what you see on the screen here: that, Lord, I want to be faithful, I want to be available, I want to be teachable. And not everybody at this point in your life is going to fit into this category. Some of them are going to have to wait for some time because you're doing so much. But to say, Lord, I want to be made willing. I want to be made willing. Well, what have we seen today? We've seen that in order to receive the reward of a good soldier of Christ, they're ready to suffer hardship. And this suffering of hardship is linked with entrusting God's Word to other people.

41:14And if BBC is to grow, we have to recognize that God has rules, and these rules that He tells us are so very clear. These three rules for church growth that we looked at, here they are: to be continually strengthened in the grace that is found in Jesus. Rule two, believers must entrust the scriptures to other qualified people. And Rule three, as Christ's ambassadors, you will suffer hardship. Those are the rules. That's what Paul tells Timothy, and this is what Timothy has done. The words are recorded in the scriptures so that we can see it 2,000 years later. And there have been faithful saints living this for the last 2,000 years in church history. And there are. Faithful saints today doing it. There are faithful saints in this church doing it. But we're asking, God, would you bring more who would have this passion to reach more people so that the next generation is equipped to do the same?

42:13Well, that brings us to the end. Why don't we close in a word of prayer? And after that, I'll say good night and enjoy the rest of your week. Father, we're so grateful for this evening. We're thankful that you gave your word, encouraging words to Paul, who at the end of his life, he penned this book to another young man. He calls him his son, his son in the faith, Timothy, who would be one who would equip others, who would be capable to continue this teaching that you've given us, Father, out of your scripture to do. We're thankful for those who have come before us over the last several centuries, who've brought your word to us, even at Texas, right here in Bryan College Station. They were faithful, they were available, and they were teachable, Lord. Would you raise up more out of this congregation to shepherd your people and to patiently bring more to Christ and strengthen them so that more are equipped to do the same? Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for each one here. In Christ's name we pray. Amen, and have a great rest of the evening.