Perseverance in Ministry

2 TIMOTHY 3:10-17 (4)

It came as something of a shock to discover recently that one of our local hospitals is third from the bottom of the national tables for MRSA infection rates. When you go into hospital you don’t want a wound to become a nesting place for bugs that are hard to kill off. Having spent a fortnight there myself a year or so ago, and having felt the deep suspicions that were raised in my mind by unwashed hands, I began to wish that visitors especially were stripped naked in some private room and sprayed with a powerful disinfectant before being allowed on to the ward. I could see that a lot of the good hygene practices of the nurses were being undone by visitors and by consultants.

Imagine that. The gracious orthodpedic surgeon comes from the patient opposite you and without washing his hands grips your hand warmly in his and holds it for several seconds whilst speaking reassuring words about your condition. All you want to say is, “Go wash your hands.”

We’ve been seeing that this second letter of Paul to Timothy is about seeking to ensure that the Body of Christ, the church, doesn’t become infected with the disease of false teaching. Paul talks in chapter 2 about the gangrene that occurs in the church when false teachers distort the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. They’re introducing disease with their warm handshakes and their apparently intelligent sermons, their supposed new insights into the Bible. What they always succeed in doing is introducing the habits and thinking of the world into the church.

That’s what chapter 3 v 1-9 was about. Clear signs that the world has invaded the church. Men and women who say that they are the people of God behaving just like the people who are ignorant of God.

So, Paul’s great strategy in this letter to solve the problem of spiritual gangrene is to make sure that the church lovingly embraces authentic models of ministry. The great statement of the principle is found in 2 Timothy 2:2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Godly theologian pastors mentoring new theologian pastors and sending them out to love and serve the congregations of the church is the divine prescription for preventing disease and promoting health in the Body of Christ.

So, far in chapter 3 we’ve looked at some of the principles that the young men must be able to learn from their mentors as they lovingly embrace authentic models of ministry. They must be men with a passion for truth (my doctrine); they must have a purpose-driven lifestyle (my conduct, my purpose); they must demonstrate persistent faith in the face of adverse experiences; they must be other-centred as they show longsuffering and love towards the flock of God, acting as godly shepherds. And, all those qualities which MUST be seen in the pastor ought also to be seen in the congregation in general as we seek to exercise godly influence on each other.

NEXT :-

PERSEVERANCE IN THE FACE OF SUFFERING

The next word the apostle uses in this amazing string of pearls is endurance. For some reason, the English words have developed from the Latin rather than the Greek language. Our words patience and endurance come from Latin words. The Greek is hupomone. It literally means, to remain under. William Barclay says that the word means much more than a stoical putting up with troubles with a stiff upper lip, but a joy-centred persistence in the face of great struggles. He says, The Greek is hupomone, which means not a passive sitting down and bearing things but a triumphant facing of them so that even out of evil there can come good. It describes, not the spirit which accepts life, but the spirit which masters it.

I was reading the Daily Devotional from Oswald Chambers on Tuesday morning and he used the image of surfing. I’ve only once stood in the face of big waves on Atalantic Beach in Florida. I was useless. Knocked down and then dragged along by the current like a rag doll. But there were other guys who were using the power of the waves to ride exultantly. they were harnassing the power of the sea to fly.

Here’s Chambers:- The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super-joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances, these very things - tribulation, distress, persecution, produce in us the super-joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Him in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it - "I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation," says Paul.

I don’t know whether a young Timothy witnessed it, but the apostle was literally knocked down by a huge wave of persecution at Lystra. He was stoned either to death or to near death. He lay broken and bleeding in the dirt outside the city. Miraculously he stood up, brushed himself down, and went back into that very city. The next day he travelled to the very cities from which his opponents had come, and encouraged the new disciples to stand fast in the face of persecution. What an encouragement! What an amazing example of endurance. Persevering in the face of suffering. Maintaining ministry despite massive pain. Trusting the Lord that these waves of opposition would actually lift him up to serve the Gospel from greater heights.

C.f. Bernie Palmer’s account of the young men in Uganda. In the royal court of King Mwanga it was the custom to have young page boys around the court. These young men were often used for homosexual practices. The Gospel came to some of these young men and they began to refuse to participate in sexual perversion. One day the king returned early from a hunting trip to find many of these page boys engaged in bible study. He was enraged and ordered that they be gathered together. He ordered the Christians and the non-Christians to be separated. He was shocked to see how many Christians there were among these lads. So, shocked that he was reluctant to have them all killed. So, he picked out a number of them at random.

They were marched in pairs 22 miles from the capital to a place of execution. They were tied in reed matting and fires were lit. There was no screaming, just the noise of the crackling fires and some gentle sobbing. Then some singing and prayers broke the stillness. Only one man wailed and that was an executioner who had been forced to kill his own son.

Persevering in the face of suffering.

And, you’ll notice that in verse 11 Paul’s remembering those exact events we’ve already described in three Turkish cities. Death threats, mob rule, assassination attempts, and opposition to his message. The persecutions I ENDURED. Yet, the Lord rescued me from all of them. This isn’t simply facing suffering with courage, it’s facing suffering with Christ. It’s trusting that the Lord will glorify himself by using these painful events to extend his kingdom and demonstrate his power.

Then, just when we think we’ve got a handle on what Paul’s saying to Timothy, we get a shock in verses 12-13. Some of the greatest persecutions the Gospel preacher will have to face will come from within the church. Evil men and IMPOSTERS. The men who threw stones in Lystra weren’t imposters, they were up front opponents. Paul says that Timothy’s opponents will be men who are deceived themselves and will deceive others. That’s in the church. The persecution promised in verse 12 is described in verse 13.

William Tyndale was persecuted to death for translating the Bible into English by a powerful man who hated his guts. His opponent was Sir Thomas More, professing Christian of the English church. Thomas Moore arrested one of Tyndale’s sympathisers a barrister called, James Bainham. Bainham refused to turn his back on the true Gospel and was whipped in Thomas More’s garden. He was then taken to the Tower and stretched on the rack until he was crippled. His wife was sent to the Fleet prison for denying that her husband had kept Tyndale’s New Testament, and their goods were confiscated.

Bainham, when he was weak with torture and afraid for his wife, turned his back on the Gospel. But it was a short-lived recantation. A month later he stood up in St. Augustine’s with a copy of Tyndale’s dreaded Bible in his hand and with weeping declared that he’d denied God but was back on course. He knew he’d signed his death sentence. He was interrogated again before the church courts and massive pressure was put on him to turn from the Gospel and back to the so-called true faith of the Church. He was taken to the bishop’s coal cellar in Fulham Palace and chained in the stocks in irons for several days. He was then chained to a post at Sir Thomas More’s house for two days and whipped. He was returned to Fulham and was tortured for a week. He was taken to the Tower for two more weeks of whippings. He was declared beyond hope by the church, and taken off to Newgate. On April 30th 1532 he was burned to death in a London street.

That’s an extreme example of perseverance in the face of suffering. All godly ministers who are determined to preach a pure Gospel and nothing but the Gospel, who are determined to rule the church by the Word of God, and by nothing other than the Word of God, will have to suffer for it, from people in the church who want something different from the Gospel or extra to the Gospel.

My own ministerial pain has come mainly from within the church; from people who wouldn’t put up with sound doctrine and didn’t like expository ministry that searched their hearts. The little campaign that was waged against me in a church in Buckinghamshire was led by a wealthy man who said, “Who does he think he is to speak to us like this”. That same man manipulated a coup while we were away on holiday one New Year and I came home to find he’d taken over the leadership of the church. When I went to plead with him not to take this course of action because it would split the church he said, I have never been more sure of my heavenly Father’s will.”

The church split and has never recovered. Deceiving and being deceived.

What we need is men who will go out into the churches and be ready to suffer all things for the sake of God’s elect. Being willing to endure financial loss, emotional tension, humiliation at the hands of professing Christians, opposition to their ministries by power-hungry church officers. Men who are willing to take their wives and families into situations where it breaks your heart to see your wife trying to feed and clothe the children with pauper’s wages. Willing to accept such things so that God may through the Gospel gather the people he has chosen to save, through the Gospel he has chosen to use.

Are there any gifted men here who are ready and willing for that, who will join with the apostle in suffering all things for the sake of God’s elect?

Are there any people here who are willing to give themselves to prayer that God will raise up such men for the work of the Gospel in these days?

Are there any people here who will give sacrificially in order to train and support such men in their equipping and sending? And thus secure a healthy future for the church of Christ.

Lovingly embrace authentic models of ministry.