John Bunyan was a Baptist minister in a town called Bedford, a town which is in the news this week for all the wrong reasons. In the year 1678 he published a book called The Pilgrim's Progress. If you've never met it before, it proved to be hugely popular as soon as it was published, and indeed has been translated into multiple languages, and since it was published in 1678 has never once been out of print. It is a story that is a picture of the Christian life, in which all of the characters you meet in the story, and all of the places, are given names that are not-so-subtle hints as to what they represent and stand for. So, for example, you meet the colourful, large, cruel character of Giant Despair, who presides over the stone pile known as Doubting Castle. You get the hint of the levels of subtlety involved. It's also deliciously steeped in scripture — almost every sentence in The Pilgrim's Progress is an allusion or a quotation to scripture somewhere.
It is the story of how a young man called Christian meets somebody called Evangelist — you get the idea — and Evangelist tells Christian he has to leave the place where he lives, the City of Destruction, and travel, according to certain instructions, to reach the Celestial City. Along the way they visit many places, one of which is a town called Vanity. Vanity is an old English word meaning emptiness, nothingness. And in Vanity, we're told, there is a fair — a bit like a modern-day street market — called Vanity Fair. And in Vanity Fair all manner of pleasures were available to be bought from the stalls as you passed through the streets. But it was only pleasurable for those who fitted in. I won't spoil the story for you, but as they travel through, the way things work out is that Christian and his travelling companion, Faithful, end up imprisoned in a cage in the public square awaiting trial. You have to read the book to find out what happens to them — they don't have the same outcomes as one another.
And that's a picture, as I say, of the Christian life. As we travel on our journey towards the Celestial City, there are a great many pleasures on offer to distract us, and a great many hardships on offer to deter us. And if you were here two weeks ago, when we last looked at 2 Timothy, we learned that sometimes the offer of pleasure, or of an easy life, doesn't just come from the world out there that does not believe. Sometimes those invitations come from within the Christian church — even Christian ministers and leaders holding out a more pleasurable, less painful distortion of Christianity.
So here's how chapter 3 begins. Paul says: “Mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days” — the period from Jesus's first coming to his second coming — “people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud” — on he goes — verse 4 — “treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
And the question for this morning is: why would you keep following Jesus along the path you're on, when you discover offers of greater pleasure without Jesus? Or if you are presented with a way to follow Jesus that does not involve you saying no to things you would like to do? Or when following Jesus costs you in some way — why would you keep going?
Keep going
Well, you've heard me say before that when you're studying the New Testament letters, of which this is an example, one useful trick to have up your sleeve is to look for the direct commands in the passage you're looking at — are there any direct commands made to the person reading the letter, for them to put into practice? In this passage there is only one command. It comes in verse 14. Paul says to Timothy: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of.” People will do all this stuff — loving pleasure, loving money, not loving God, boastful, arrogant, unforgiving — but as for you, continue in two things: what you've learned, and what you've become convinced of. When you become a Christian, you learn about Jesus. But then, as you keep following him, you put down deeper roots, your convictions grow, and you become more and more convinced that Jesus is the way through life. Keep going.
But again, why would you keep going? Well, let's keep reading: “What you've learned and become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures.” There are two things there, and we're going to look at each one in turn.
Paul suffers
So first of all, Paul suffers. He says, “because you know those from whom you learned it.” Now, we learned in chapter 1 that Timothy learned of Jesus from his mother and from his grandmother, but they're not particularly in view here — the focus here is on Paul. The apostle Paul discipled Timothy and trained him. So in verse 10: “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings — what kind of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured.” Paul says to Timothy, you know these things. And Timothy does know them, because Timothy was from the city of Lystra — that was his hometown. Paul was in Iconium, and he left Iconium to go to Lystra because he learned in Iconium that there was a plot afoot to stone Paul and Barnabas, to kill them, so they left to save their lives. Then he went to Lystra, Timothy's hometown. He eventually left Lystra because a group came from Antioch and Iconium, the two previous towns he had visited, and raised a rabble in Lystra — and this time they did stone Paul. The only reason they left him alone was because they thought they had succeeded in killing him; they left him for dead. It turned out he had a pulse and wasn't dead, and lived to preach another day. But it was time to leave there as well.
And Paul says to Timothy: continue in what you've learned and become convinced of, because you know these things — you were there. All of which means the apostle Paul is not an armchair general. If you have armed forces, you want your most senior generals to be people who have risen through the ranks, who have got real experience of battle and warfare — you don't want them simply to have studied the theory and then be directing operations, having never been there themselves. Otherwise they end up sending soldier after soldier to their deaths, because they can't picture life on the ground to make the right calls. The apostle Paul has been there. He didn't go to university, study a degree in evangelism and church planting, and then get fast-tracked on the graduate scheme to give directions to Timothy to go and suffer in this way, suffer in that way, without a clue what is involved. Paul has the scars to prove it. We'll find out in glory when we meet Paul, but I suspect he carries literal scars to prove it. Paul was no armchair general.
The thing we need to be clear on, though, is that what Paul asks of Timothy is normal. So look again at verse 11: “So what happened to me, the persecutions I endured — yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.” What's next? Verse 12. What does verse 12 say? “The persecutions I endured, yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be…” — rescued? Not what it says. “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” The rescue is optional. The persecution is guaranteed. And it's not just Timothy's preaching that will get him into hot water, and it's not just preachers who will be persecuted — no, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Simply living a godly life is an implicit challenge to people around you who live by different values.
Let me spoil a little bit of the story, by way of infill. Why did Christian and Faithful end up in that cage? Three reasons. They arrived in the town of Vanity dressed differently from the local inhabitants. As they walked, it was eyes front — they would not even look at the stalls to see what was for sale, because they had been warned. And then, number three, eventually a merchant steps out into the road in front of them, blocks their path, and asks them what they would like to buy. And they say, “The only thing we want to buy is the truth” — and you don't sell that here. Do you see? Just look different, don't fit, and the persecution comes.
It's not just, by the way, because you're different, because you don't fit. A tragedy is — we all know this, don't we, from school, whatever — that people who don't quite fit, who are a bit different, get given a hard time. We kind of know that's how it works. I like to think we're all different in our own way — it's everybody else that's odd. We're the normal ones. But that's just the way it goes. But it's not just being different — it's being godly. A godly life in Christ Jesus leads to persecution.
I love the fact that Scripture contains many promises — I hope you do too. It's great, isn't it, in times of stress or difficulty or joy, to be able to call on the promises of God and remember what God has promised his people. It's fun to take those promises and compile them. I've got a book on my shelf that contains all the promises of God from Scripture, pulled out, categorised into subject, and then just laid out in print, so that you can look through them and enjoy the things that God has promised. Or you take a promise of God — “I will be with you always, to the very end of the age” — you find a lovely picture of a kitten, you stick the text over the picture of the kitten, you put it on your Instagram, and no one looking at that is even thinking about what this has got to do with kittens, because they know that isn't the point — it's a nice picture, it's a nice promise. So the two go together — promises, wonderful.
I've looked at the Scripture index for that book of promises. 2 Timothy 3:12 isn't in there. Apparently this is not one of the promises that people want to call to mind and claim. Apparently nobody turns to God in prayer and says, “Lord, you've promised that those who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted — I claim that promise in Jesus's name, please give me what you promised.” But people don't do that. Somehow this doesn't count, but it's a promise, and it's in the Bible. This is normal, says Paul. Therefore, keep going. If you discover, as you follow Jesus, that it gets you into difficulty, don't conclude the plan has gone wrong.
Now, this is not saying go out of your way to find trouble. If God gives you a quiet year and there's no persecution, he's not saying go out of your way and deliberately antagonise some people because you need to be persecuted — no, if God gives you a quiet year, rejoice. But he is saying: if you're offered a version of Christianity where this is not normal, avoid it. And Paul knows about this because Paul has lived it.
So there's one reason to keep going — because you know those from whom you learned it. We all become Christians in different ways; different people have influenced us. Some of us have been influenced by people who would not be role models to emulate. By God's kindness, he can take the most heretical preaching from the most egotistic and horrible preacher, and yet his truth can shine through, and people can be converted and saved. That is wonderful. Some of us have been influenced and discipled by people who have subsequently gone completely off the rails, and are frankly not an example for anything except a reminder that we continue only by the grace of God. Others of us, though, have got wonderful role models to look back on in our life — people who have looked after us and nurtured us and cared for us, and who are wonderful people to copy, people who have suffered for the gospel. Well, whatever contemporary examples you've got in your life, good or bad, we all have Paul's example, because we have the book of Acts, and we all have Jesus's example. We all, however, know all about Jesus's teaching, his way of life, his purpose, his faith, his patience, his love, his endurance, his persecutions and sufferings, the persecutions he endured — yet the Lord rescued him from all of them. We all know that. And so we too can continue, because we know those from whom we learned it.
The Bible
And then, second, we can continue because we know the Bible. “You know those from whom you learned it” — verse 14 — and verse 15: “how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures.” And then Paul gives us four truths about the Bible, each of which gives us a really solid reason to keep going with Jesus. If you know your Bible, there are lots of reasons to keep following the real Jesus.
The Bible saves through Jesus
Here's the first truth: the Bible saves through Jesus. Verse 15: “How from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation in Christ Jesus.” Now, don't get this wrong — he's not saying that the Bible saves you. No, Jesus saves you. He's not saying that Jesus saves you as you read the Bible. No — it's salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus saves you from sin, from an eternity of the judgment of God, to a place of forgiveness, membership of his family, and a wonderful future free of suffering. Jesus saves you as you trust him. What the Bible does is make you wise, so that you can do it — it tells you what you need to know.
They say to you, “Please read the card in the pocket of the seat in front of you,” and people fiddle with their phones instead. Research shows that in the case of an aircraft accident those who have read that card are more likely to survive, because they don't make basic mistakes, like inflating their life jacket while they're still inside the aircraft, only to find they can't fit through the door. But here's the thing — reading that card doesn't save you if the plane goes down. Reading that card saves you if you do what it says, if you act on what's there. Now, actually, there's a difference there, isn't there, because tragically there are still aeroplane accidents in which people don't survive even if they've read the card — so it's a broken analogy. Statistically, by the way, if you've got a flight booked next week — statistically, let me just tell you this, flying is one of the safest ways to travel, just so you know. In fact, just at the moment, aren't we all weeping tragically about our rail networks. So it's not guaranteed — but Jesus is. Jesus saves, without fail, everyone who trusts in him. And what the Bible does is tell you about him, tell you to trust him, and then what you need to do is act on what's on the card — you need to trust him.
Timothy has known of Jesus since infancy — he's known of Scripture since infancy. That's a word that means very, very small, babes-in-arms kind of small. So we might paraphrase this in our modern language and say: “and how, since your dedication service as a baby, you have known the holy Scriptures.” “And how, since you were in Rockets, you have known the holy Scriptures.” What a precious thing it is to teach the youngest children — yes, about God, yes, about Jesus, but not just that, about the Scriptures. Because you are then giving them the opportunity to have the privilege that is mine, by God's kindness as well, of looking back in adult life and saying, “From my infancy I have known those Scriptures.” So, if you want to become a Christian, the Bible will tell you how, and we'd love to help you see that. But here's why you keep going with the Jesus that you started with: he's the Jesus of the Bible, and sometimes you've known that for a very, very long time.
The Bible speaks God’s truth
Second truth about the Bible: the Bible speaks God's truth. Verse 16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed” — literally, carried on God's breath. Now, you know, probably, that sound does not travel in a vacuum. So God is kind to us, for two reasons, not to give us a vacuum in this room this morning. Number one, we can breathe — it's good for our health. Number two, it means that the sound coming out of my mouth reaches you, so that you can hear what I'm saying — I hope you think that's a good thing. When God breathes out, the word of Scripture comes out on his breath, so that we can hear it. Yes, he did that through many different human writers, who wrote with their own styles, personality, vocabulary and so on, but nevertheless every single word — all Scripture — is precisely what God wanted.
At the end of our Bible readings we say, “This is the word of the Lord.” Why do we do that? Because it's true. And saying it every single Sunday just reinforces in our hearts the fact that it's true. We don't ask the reader to stand up and say, “This contains a few ideas that God approves of — I hope you find it inspiring.” No — this is the word of the Lord. God also speaks through the preaching of his word, because the Bible is God's word, and insofar as we preachers are opening up the Bible, you're hearing God speak. But there is a real sense in which the Bible reading in the service is more important than the sermon, because when the word of God is being read, at that point you are hearing the very words of God — to quote the British coronation service.
People say all kinds of rubbish about the Bible — they really do. Things like this, which is surprisingly common: they say the Bible is the story of the human race trying to figure out what God is like, and as you work through the Bible they get better at it, and you find more inspired truths, and we, in our day, should learn from their attempts and continue the effort of trying to figure out what God is like. What a load of rubbish. All Scripture is God-breathed. So why keep going with the Jesus you started with? Because he isn't just one Jesus amongst many, pick the one you like — no, the Bible is God speaking to you about God.
The Bible steers through life
Third truth about the Bible: the Bible steers through life. Verse 16: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful.” Because God speaks it, it's a useful book — useful for four things: teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Let's look at those four, because we can pair them up in different ways. Teaching and correcting are both to do with how we think; rebuking and training in righteousness are both to do with how we live. Pair them a different way: teaching and training are both positive things, telling you what to think and do, whereas rebuking and correcting are negative — correcting, fixing things when they've gone wrong. So the Bible will direct you on the right track through life. It'll put you back on track if you've drifted, both in how you think and in how you live. That's a wonderfully comprehensive thing — this is God's book to shape and steer our lives in every area.
NASA would like to once again land people on the surface of the Moon, and this has triggered another international space race, as other countries want to try and get there first. Here's the question for this morning: how do you get a rocket to find the Moon? It's not rocket science. Here's what you don't do, okay: you don't put your rocket on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, get your binoculars, stand underneath the rocket, look up, and have various engineers with controls and levers going, “Bit left — bit to the left — no, no, too far — back forwards a bit — okay, that's it — ten, nine, eight, blast off, fingers crossed.” That's not what you do. In fact, I don't know what you do, because it turns out it is rocket science after all. What you have is an extremely well-trained group of engineers at the Johnson Space Center, with computers that can do all kinds of wizardry, and then very well-trained astronauts actually on the rocket, and a series of very carefully calculated adjustment burns to nudge and tweak and slow down and speed up, so that the rocket gets exactly where it needs to go.
See why keep going with Jesus? Because he doesn't just launch you towards heaven like a paper aeroplane and hope that you make it — he speaks to you every time you open the Bible, to keep you on track. So if you want Jesus to save you and get you to heaven, read it, and he will steer you all the way there.
The Bible sufficiently equips for ministry
And then the fourth truth about the Bible: the Bible sufficiently equips for ministry. Here's verse 17. Because the Bible is all these things he's just said, here's the result: “So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Who is this servant of God, you might wonder? Literally, it's “the man of God.” If you look at the older version of the NIV, the Bible translation we use here, 1984, you will see it says “man of God.” But the current one we've got, 2011, they change that to “servant of God.” That's because the English language evolves, and what the NIV studiously tries to avoid doing is introducing, in English, a gender bias where there wasn't one in the original. So here's another example: frequently in the 1984 NIV you'll have “brothers — dear brothers, do this,” and the NIV in 2011 rightly changes that to “brothers and sisters,” because in the eighties “brothers” meant men and women alike, but now, if you just say “brothers,” it sounds odd, like you're excluding women. So that's a really healthy change — I thoroughly approve of the NIV bringing the English language up to date in that way.
But, as we'll see, it's a good job they did it here, because we miss something — that phrase “man of God” is a pregnant phrase from the Old Testament. It occurs seventy times in the Old Testament. Let me tell you who it's used of. It's first used to describe Moses. Then it's used to describe the angel who appeared to Samson's parents, to tell them of the strange and particular baby they were to have — do you remember, “I want the man of God to come back and speak to me again”? Then it's used of the prophet Samuel, and it's used frequently of Elijah and Elisha. Are you spotting the pattern? These are the people that God sent to his people, to speak his word to them. So this is not a promise for every Christian, not immediately — this is a promise for those engaged in what we would call today “word ministry,” bringing the word of God to the people of God. Now, that is not just men, which is why actually it's helpful that they have not used “man of God” — we just mustn't miss out on what's going on along the way there. There are many men and women in this church involved in word ministries of many different kinds. Indeed, because God gives us his Holy Spirit, we all stand in the line of the Old Testament man of God.
And Paul's point is: because of what the Bible is, and because of what the Bible does — if you have the Bible, you have all you need for Christian ministry. Maybe you have a bike, and you need to occasionally take it to a bike shop to be repaired. And if you do, the bike shop looks extremely impressive — a huge, intimidating array of tools laid out. You've got spanners of every size, Allen keys of every size, pumps for pumping up tyres, green gunk to put in the tyres so they can't get a puncture, some weird tools that you have no idea what they do — you suspect they have to do with chains or spokes or both, you don't know. This huge array of kit — the effect of that, and this might well be deliberate, is to communicate that unless you have that array of kit you can't fix a bike. Which means you have to do one of two things: keep bringing the bike to the shop, or go to the other section of the shop and buy all the tools, so your garage at home can look like that — which doesn't give you the skills you need, just the tools.
It's easy, in Christian ministry, to think: I need lots of tech. You can't do Christian ministry unless you've got WhatsApp, your own YouTube channel, lighting, cameras, sound systems, emails. Now, those things are useful, but you don't need them. Just imagine one Sunday morning we're setting up here, and there's a power cut — okay, no internet, no lights, no electricity for the sound, no livestream. What happens? Carry on. We sing, we pray, we read the Bible, we talk about it. You don't need that stuff — it's nice, don't need it.
You don't need lots of background training either. So it's easy — many Christians lack confidence to speak God's word to other people. You think, “Well, unless I've had some training, I couldn't possibly open the Bible with a work colleague, look at John's Gospel with him — I'm not trained.” Well, training is useful, training is nice, but you don't need it. I mean, obviously, don't get me wrong, we think it's a good thing for pastors to receive proper training in their job — you're grateful for that too. We train our ministry teams here — we want a welcome team that is equipped to do its job well, as they are, so we train them. We want to train our children's leaders, we want to train our small group leaders — we want training. You don't need it. If you have a Bible, you can open it with a work colleague, look at the Bible with them — that's okay.
And you don't need lots of trendy thinking either. I feel a bit of the pressure sometimes as a pastor — I think I've got to find something original and clever to say every single week, so I need to be an expert in literature, the arts, culture, science, languages, current affairs, I've got to keep on top of all this stuff, a bit of philosophy, so I can find something really clever to give people. Now, some of that stuff is useful, sure — I listen to some very interesting non-Christian podcasts. You don't need those. You just need the Bible. Whoever you are — man or woman, adult, child — if you have the Bible, you have God's way of bringing Jesus into people's lives. You are thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Conclusion
So let's go back to verse 14: “As for you, continue in what you've learned and become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures.” The word here for “continue” is the word translated elsewhere in the New Testament “remain.” Paul is saying: you know those who taught you, you know Paul and his typical persecutions, you know Jesus, you can see the authenticity. He says, you know the Bible — it's God's word, it saves through Jesus, it steers you through life, it equips you sufficiently for ministry. And so he says: keep going, continue in what you've learned and become convinced of, remain in Jesus, and stay the course.
To finish, I'm going to read some words from John's Gospel chapter 15 — words that will be familiar to some of us. Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”