20/20 Vision for 2024: To and Through: Our Ministry Cycle

TO

1. To: The Gospel has come to us.

▪ Let’s notice the key commands in this passage. My outline follows them.

Stand on the gospel message.

▪ 1:8-12▪ Do not be ashamed. ▪ But share in suffering for the gospel.▪ What? Jesus saved us.▪ Unto what? Jesus called us to a holy calling.▪ Why? Jesus saved us because of his purpose and grace, not because of our works.▪ When? Jesus planned to save us before time began, accomplished it in history in his saving work, applied it to us in our conversion, and sustains us until the end.▪ Who? Jesus saves us through his coming, abolishing death, and bringing life and immortality.

Follow the gospel pattern.

▪ 1:13-14. ▪ The gospel as “pattern of sound words” (1:13), “good deposit” (1:14).  What is the pattern of sound words “you heard from me”? (1:13; 2:2).▪ It is sometimes called “the gospel” (1:8, 10) “sound doctrine”, “the deposit” (1:14), “the word” (4:2), “the trustworthy word” (Titus 1:9), “the faith”, “the teaching”, etc:▪ 1 Timothy 4:13-16: Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to doctrine/teaching…. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.▪ 2 Timothy 1:12-13: I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.▪ 2 Timothy 4:2-7: 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…. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.▪ Titus 1:9: (of the elder/pastor) He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it.▪ “Sound doctrine,” “the deposit”, “the gospel”, “the word”, “the faith”, “the teaching”, “pattern of sound words you heard from me,” etc. refers to a received, accepted, and authoritative apostolic doctrine/teaching.▪ “Sound doctrine” (and usually the others, too) is consistently used in the singular, not plural. It refers to the essence of Christianity, the whole of the faith. It is often contrasted with the plural “teachings” and “myths” of the false teachers (e.g., the doctrine vs. the varied teachings).▪ “Sound doctrine” means healthy, virtuous teaching, “health-giving” as opposed to the diseased, infectious, destructive errors of false teachers.▪ So why follow the gospel pattern? ▪ They are true.▪ They are health-giving.▪ We share the gospel knowing that it’s true and helps people.▪ How do we follow the gospel pattern?▪ In the faith and love that are in Christ.▪ Believing the truth is not enough, holding onto it is not enough. We must follow its pattern, embracing it with faith in God and love for others.▪ Be true to the gospel: to the ideas and the pattern of love.▪ Titus 2:13: our lives of faith and love “adorn the doctrine.”▪ We must have a gospel life/gospel way/gospel atmosphere of love and grace, too. As Ray Ortlund refers to it, a gospel culture.▪ We share the gospel of grace in an atmosphere of grace.

Guard the gospel deposit.

▪ 1:14▪ Guard as keep intact; preserve.▪ Deposit suggests our stewardship, our responsibility to the truth.▪ What if we only passed 90% of it down right? And what those after us did that? And those after them? 90/81/72/63/54/etc.▪ And that does not account for how we could get 90% right but miss the essence of things! That is often called heresy.

Walk by gospel power.

▪ 2:1▪ Be strengthened by God’s grace in Christ.▪ present, passive, imperative▪ “By the Holy Spirit”, we guard the gospel? See 1:12, 1:14▪ In 1:12, God guards the good deposit. ▪ As Paul fades off the scene, he entrusts not only his salvation to God but also the gospel. The God who abolishes death can guard the gospel and our mission (Towner, 476).▪ In 1:14, Timothy guards the good deposit—by the Holy Spirit’s power.▪ Are you strong enough for this high calling? Are you ready to take on whatever comes your way? Are you competent to pastor? Too often to the person who is struggling, we say: you can do it. You have the training, you have the experience, you have the gifts. You can do it. Paul does not tell Timothy to find resources from within, but from God. ▪ When Moses says who am I, God does not say: Moses, you got this. I prepped you. He said, who made you? Who made your mouth? Am I not the Lord? (Exod 3-4). We can’t but God can. When you do not have the strength to keep going, don’t look in. Look up!

THROUGH

2. Through: The Gospel has come to us, so it can go through us.

Entrust the gospel to others.

▪ 2:2▪ aorist imperative▪ Do we guard the gospel and protect it by putting it in a vault?▪ No, we guard it, and we entrust it!▪ We preserve it, and pass it on!▪ In fact, we guard it by entrusting it!▪ To whom? Faithful people who will be able to teach others also (2:2)▪ faithful: trustworthy in character, accurate in teaching; not perfect but steady▪ men: anthropoi, generic; other passages show that pastors are male, but this passage includes women as people to disciple and who disciple.▪ able to teach others: able, eager to pass it on (1 Tim 3:2; 5:17; Titus 1:9)▪ Phil Kell’s favorite quote: on the wall at the CB Foundation, “The faithful man is the one who lives for the next generation.”

TO AND THROUGH: OUR MINISTRY CYCLE

To and through: entrusted to entrust/entrusted to entrust à

TO

▪ 1:8-12: Stand on the gospel message.▪ 1:13: Follow the gospel pattern.▪ 1:14: Guard the gospel deposit.▪ 2:1: Walk by gospel power.

THROUGH

▪ 2:2: Entrust the gospel to others.▪ TO AND THROUGH is like a baton in an Olympic relay race: receive it, run and don’t drop it, and pass it on intact.▪ TO AND THROUGH is like an Olympic torch: you recognize the significance of what someone is handing you, you respectfully prize it and pass it on intact to the next person, who does the same.▪ TO AND THROUGH is like passing on the light of a candle, without extinguishing ours. We keep passing it on, and they keep passing it on.

TO AND THROUGH, AND OUR LEGACY

Our legacy is PEOPLE. People who disciple people who disciple people!

TO AND THROUGH, AND OUR RESPONSIBILITY

1. “To” requires that we receive, study, guard, live the gospel atmosphere.2. “To” is not enough. Some people love to study but just to sit and know. God calls us to know to pass it on: “Through.”3. “To and through” does not only happen when we are old and mature. Timothy is young and is expected to pass it on.4. We are always in the “TO” stage, always receiving, always learning, always guarding, always growing in gospel atmosphere.5. After some basic growth, we are always in the “THROUGH” stage, always teaching, always coaching, always discipling. (Timothy was young and still to pass it on)

TO AND THROUGH, AND OUR CALENDAR

TO: Are you learning, studying, growing? How much is in your calendar?

THROUGH: Who are you discipling? How much is in your calendar?

Tracy will now come and lead in the ordination.