Discipleship in 3D — Part Two

I want to take just a moment or two to add a PS, as it were, to our study from this morning. Many of you were not here, so if you turn to 2 Timothy and to chapter 2, I’ll give you a brief resume. And then I’d like just to get to our third point that we left out before we share in Communion together.

Second Timothy 2:3. Paul writes:

“Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I [am] say[ing], for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”

Father, do help us just in these brief moments. Grant to us clarity and faith, we pray. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Well, we said that the exhortations or these designations on the part of Paul need to be understood in light of what he has reminded Timothy of in the opening verse—namely, that his strength comes from the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So, it is on the basis of his life in Christ and the grace of Christ and the strength that comes from Christ that these pictures are then to be responded to and taken to heart and applied.

And first we noted the devotion of the solider who is in submission to his commanding officer. And then we went on to consider the way in which the athlete paid attention to the rules. And we were very clear about the fact—at least we tried to be very clear about the fact—that the Christian is not under the law as a way of salvation but as a guide to conduct in life.

And I think it would be worth reiterating what I did in only one of the services. Because there is in the minds of people a confusion regarding the place of the law in the life of the Christian, and it is a matter of debate even in evangelical circles. My position is pretty clear and has been throughout—namely, that the law of God sends us to Christ in order that we might be saved and that Christ returns us to the law to frame our way of life, so that we are not then simply living out our existence on the basis of conjecture or on the strength of love or whatever else it might be.

The Christian is not under the law as a way of salvation but as a guide to conduct in life.

In case folks stumble over that, the notion that glad obedience to the moral law of God is simply our logical act of worship, let’s just be clear about this: What are we able to say with confidence from the Scriptures? Number one, that Christ has fulfilled the law of God for us. We are lawbreakers. He is the law fulfiller, by his active obedience. By his passive obedience, he has kept the law of God in its entirety, for he is a perfect man. And when we look away to Christ, we look away to him as the one who has satisfied the demands of the law by obeying it in its entirety and who has absorbed the curse of the law which falls upon lawbreakers—namely, ourselves. So our confidence is always in Christ, the one who has fulfilled God’s law for us.

Secondly, that in Christ we are given a new ability to obey God’s law—that the law only condemns us before we find, in Jesus, the law fulfilled. When we are redeemed, when we are made new, then we discover that the Holy Spirit works in us—and we saw this when we studied in Romans chapter 8—in such a way as to give us the ability to obey the law of God from our hearts, in a way that is not irksome nor in a way that suggests by so doing, we are putting ourselves in a stronger standing with God than we were if we had not been so good. And we realized that we could never make ourselves more acceptable to God than we are in Christ.

Our sanctification is achieved as a result of our communion with Christ.

Thirdly, that we need to recognize that our new freedom in Christ—our freedom in Christ—is expressed in glad obedience to the commands of Christ. Our freedom is expressed in obedience. It’s kind of paradoxical, isn’t it? But that’s exactly what Jesus said: “If a man or a woman loves me, they will keep my commandments.”[1] And it wasn’t really hard to understand that, and it shouldn’t be for us tonight.

Fourthly, we need to make absolutely clear that when we’re thinking about our sanctification—that is, the work of the Spirit of God within our lives to conform us ever and ever and more and more to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ—that that process of sanctification comes from our communion with Christ. From our communion with Christ. So don’t misunderstand. Don’t hear me saying that our sanctification is achieved by our obedience to the law of God. Our sanctification is achieved as a result of our communion with Christ. And our communion with Christ is a love affair which issues, again, in obedience.

And fifthly, it is important also to recognize that when we break God’s law—and we do break God’s law—we do not lose our relationship with the Father, but we spoil our relationship with the Father. In simple terms, when my father told me, “Be home at eleven o’clock, and make sure the car is in the garage,” and I came home at quarter past midnight, I was hoping desperately that he was in bed and that he would leave early for work the following morning, because I was not looking forward to breakfast time. Why? Because he would be disbanding me as his son? That I would no longer be able to call him father? No. But because I had broken his rules; I had cast a shadow over the enjoyment of my relationship with him. And I hope that makes perfect sense. And we come back to it another time.

And then the third and final picture that we were going to consider is in verse 6: not the picture of a solider or an athlete but the picture of a hard-working farmer. So, if we want to think in terms of the devotion of the soldier and the discipline of the athlete, we can think in terms of the diligence of the farmer.

There are no overnight results in farming, as far as I can tell—apart, I suppose, from dairy farming. You would say that there are some overnight results there. But this picture is, on the one hand, a daunting picture and it’s, on the one hand, an encouraging picture. It’s quite a challenge, isn’t it, the picture of a hard-working farmer? Because there’s none of the drama in this metaphor that is associated either with the concept of being a solider in an army or being an athlete in a race. There’s drama in that, you know. There’s warfare, and there’s strenuous activity, and there’s competition and so on. But there’s nothing of that in the work of a farmer. The daily routine of a farmer is by and large just plain, old-fashioned work. I mean, you have to do the same things again and again. You have to do it whether you feel like it or whether you don’t feel like it if you want to have any kind of crop. If you’re going to sit around and wait for the temperature to be perfect or for the wind to be perfect, you will never plant anything. And if you never plant anything, then you will never reap anything.

Well, what’s the point? Well, the point is twofold, I think. One, when we think about the daunting nature of this, it is to recognize the fact that while a lot of Christian discipleship may have excitement in it, actually, most of Christian discipleship is a bit of a slog. It’s a bit of a slog. It’s a bit like the other routines of our lives. You know, you have to get up, you have to brush your teeth, you have to do these things, and you go on again. And the Christian life is a lot like that. And it’s a lot like the challenge of being a farmer: week after week, sowing, watering, planting. Doing so in conditions that are often less than ideal. Hindered by stony soil. Hindered by weeds which spring up easily. Hindered in such a way that when we take the metaphor and apply it, the servant of God may be tempted to say, “You know, this is so jolly difficult, I don’t want to do this anymore.” And especially if they begin to look around and see that someone else’s farm seems to be going gloriously well. And they’ve been doing the same things and trying their best, and yet they don’t seem to have the same success. And the temptation will be for them to say, “Well, I need to go and find out how I can be far more successful, or find another methodology, or do whatever else it is.” It can be very daunting, can’t it?

But the flip side of it is that it’s actually a very encouraging metaphor. Because what it’s saying is this: that as a servant of God, I may not enjoy the gifts that somebody else does. I may not be gifted in the way that another servant of God is. But as long as I have health and strength and as long as I have breath, I can work hard. I can work hard. And the promise is that “it is the hard-working farmer who [should] have the first share of the crops”—that the benefits that accrue are benefits that are enjoyed by the farmer who is diligent.

The servant of God should be living with his eye on the harvest.

Giftedness plus laziness is a dangerous combination. And many a man has been exceptionally gifted and proved absolutely useless, because he’s not diligent—squandered his gifts. On the other side, someone who has simple gifts exercised with humble diligence will produce far more than he might expect—will produce a harvest, if he doesn’t quit.[2]

So, you have the rigor that is attached to being a soldier, you have the rules that are identified as part and parcel of the athletic program, and you have the rewards that come to the farmer. Paul was able to speak of this, because he had worked very hard, and he had enjoyed a harvest of souls. And indeed, Timothy was part of that harvest. And the fruit that Paul knew was the work of God, but it was not the work of God apart from the hard work of Paul. Right? The fruit that he knew was the work of God, but the work of God that produced the fruit did not produce the fruit apart from the hard work of Paul. God did not do it in a vacuum. He may from time to time do it in a vacuum, but that hasn’t been his pattern.

There are toils, there are tears, and there are also great joys in being present to witness the early signs of life, when those little shoots appear in the ground, when you show them to your children and your grandchildren: “Look! It’s going to be springtime. There are the evidences of a harvest yet to come.” And so it is that the servant of God should be living with his eye on the harvest. That’s why Jesus said, “Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send laborers into his harvest,”[3] so that we might share in these privileges.

George Whitefield, probably the greatest evangelist in America, at least in the eighteenth century, writes in his diary—he’s in North Carolina on Christmas Day 1739, and his entry in his diary is as follows: “Oh how [it will] rejoice me to hear that some … Soul this Day was born again! Then it would be … Christmas Day indeed!”[4] “Oh, if I could only know that somebody was born again!”

Rutherford was the same. Rutherford labored in Anwoth on the Solway Firth, the border between Scotland and England, and never with great obvious success—no fantastic crowds, no amazing indications of things. He was a faithful soldier. He was a hard-working farmer. He was a rule-keeping athlete. And when [Anne] Cousins, the wife of a Presbyterian minister who was a friend of Rutherford’s, wrote a thirty-three-stanza poem on the life of Rutherford that she had taken out of his letters and his memoirs, the poem begins, “The sands of time are sinking, the dawn of heaven breaks,” and “the summer morn I’ve [longed] for,”[5] and so on. It’s very poetic and became a hymn of that ilk. But there’s a stanza in there that I love that she took, again, from his journal, and it reads as follows: “O Anwoth”—that’s the place—

O Anwoth on the Solway, to me thou still art dear!
Even from the edge of heaven I shed for thee a tear.
And if one soul from Anwoth meets me at God’s right hand,
My heaven will be two heavens in Immanuel’s land.[6]

O Cleveland on Lake Erie, to me you are still dear! One day from the edge of heaven I shed for you a tear. And if one soul from Cleveland meets me, meets you, at God’s right hand, then your heaven may be two heavens in Immanuel’s land.

A good soldier, a strenuous athlete, a diligent farmer, and all energized, as verse 1 makes clear, by the grace that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. The indicative always precedes the imperative.

Father, thank you for the way that Paul was able to write so clearly and so helpfully, so that those of us who are becoming jaded or indifferent or lethargic or casual or careless or lazy could be jolted out of such a dangerous posture.

Thank you for the grace that is ours as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant that that grace may issue, then, in a life that is marked by these characteristics, so that we might in due course reap a harvest, if we don’t faint. Thank you that all of our acceptance with you is in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that we are covered over with a robe of righteousness that is his perfect and finished work. Thank you that when you look on us, you see us in the Son. What a marvel! We praise you. In Christ’s name. Amen.

[1] John 14:15 (paraphrased).

[2] See Galatians 6:9.

[3] Matthew 9:38 (paraphrased).

[4] George Whitefield, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from His Embarking after the Embargo, to His Arrival at Savannah in Georgia, 2nd ed. (London, 1740), 73.

[5] Anne R. Cousins, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking” (1857).

[6] Cousins, “Sands of Time.” Lyrics lightly altered.