A Good Soldier of Christ Jesus: Remember Your Commission | 2 Timothy 2:1–2

We are all tempted to treat spiritual growth like a creativity problem. If we just find the newest program, the smartest strategy, or the flashiest outreach idea, then the church will finally “work.” But Paul, writing from a prison cell in 2 Timothy, points Timothy and us back to something far simpler and far more powerful: the method is already written, and the strength to live it comes from grace.

We walk through 2 Timothy 2:1-2 and talk honestly about what it looks like to keep serving when ministry feels costly, when fear shows up, and when you are tired of trying to get it right. Paul’s command is not “try harder.” It is “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” That single line reshapes discipleship, spiritual formation, and Christian leadership because it anchors our obedience in identity. Then we move to the multiplication model of disciple making: what you receive, you entrust to faithful men and women who will teach others also. Four generations in one verse.

To prove this is not theory, we trace how the Great Commission reaches “the ends of the earth,” tell a surprising chain of influence that runs from Puritan writers to Prison Fellowship, and even run the numbers on why personal discipleship outpaces big events. We also give practical next steps for finding someone to pour into you and for starting to disciple someone else in everyday life.

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Transcript

Welcome And Scripture Focus

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Hello, Pastor Thomas Gehrin here, First Baptist Church of El Daredo, Europe. Joined us today in a series called A Good Soldier of Christ Jesus, which is a study in 2 Timothy chapter 2. Throughout this series, we're going to learn a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus who makes disciples of Jesus. And so we're going to run this race as we walk through 2 Timothy 2. And I'm so thankful that you've chosen to join us today, and I hope you are encouraged from God's word. Looking at chapter 2 of 2 Timothy. What it means to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus throughout 2 Timothy chapter 2. Today we're just going to cover the first two verses, and here they are now. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, thank you for the privilege of your word. Thank you for the method of discipleship you provide to us. Lord, teach us now, teach us throughout the summer through the letter of 2 Timothy. And Lord, would you just renew our hearts today, encourage our hearts today, teach our hearts, convict our hearts. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

The Full Court Press Lesson

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Malcolm Gladwell tells a story of a man who, born and raised in Mumbai, but moved to the U.S. to Silicon Valley, became really a tech CEO, tech giant. In the early 2000s, upon coming to this country, he was tasked with, of all things, coaching his 12-year-old daughter's basketball team. Now, there were two issues with that. Number one, growing up in Mumbai, he he didn't even have a clue what basketball was. He didn't know the rules, he didn't know anything about it. Number two, had he known anything about the game, uh, the problem too was was simply this uh his daughter's team was just no good. Uh I mean, even if he had known everything about basketball, there's not much it could have helped. They just weren't a good team. And so he had problems all over. And so what he did, he he's just this kind of mind. He said, I'll get to know the game, and uh how can I take a team that's just no good and a coach that doesn't know the rules, and how can I make us competitive? And so what he did, he he went to the rules of the game and he studied and he studied every word, every rule, looking for some way that they can gain an advantage. And he saw that no team in the league utilized ever utilized the full court press. And he says, no, wait a second. We're allowed to do it. The rules say I can do it. No one else is doing it. We're gonna do it. And so this team of 12-year-old girls becomes like the greatest defensive team. From the moment you've passed the ball in at the far baseline, they are right there on you. And this team went on to have wild success. And he laughs about it. It that still didn't mean uh offensively they were any good, but they would win games four to nothing, six to nothing. Their defense was so good, and they uh became an unbelievable basketball team. And the irony of it all at the end of the day is this man who knew nothing about basketball. I told you he was a tech giant. He now owns the Sacramento Kings, an NBA team. But he just looked at the rule book and said, What's possible? What are the methods that we can use that no one else is using? I I'm certain this morning that as believers, as we think about expanding the kingdom of God, the methods are all written right there before us. The strategy, the rules of the game, the method, it's all here. Here's our problem as the church. And I'm not just talking about First Baptist Elder Eight, I'm talking about the church. Here is our problem as the church. We try anything and everything to expand the kingdom other than the way the Lord tells us to. Our own creativity, our own special ideas, and we have special ideas and we're smart people, but sometimes we just got to go back to the method provided and say, Lord, how do you want us to do it? What rules and methods have you given us? I believe in 2 Timothy, Paul is providing the methods for discipleship. 2

Paul's Prison Letter And Two Reactions

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Timothy, a letter written from Paul to Timothy, while Paul is in a prison cell during his second and final imprisonment in Rome. Paul knows, and you read it throughout the letter, you see that he knows that uh this is the end of the road. He's in prison and he's not going to make it out of prison. Uh, and he will soon be executed for his faith. And Paul is sitting in prison and he is writing to Timothy, this leader in the church at Ephesus, and he's passing down to his disciple Timothy just some pastoral wisdom, some ministry wisdom of how to lead and how to serve. And I just want to see two things this morning that are that are very simple. Uh number one, a disciple of Jesus, and number two, making disciples of Jesus. A disciple of Jesus, making disciples of Jesus.

Strength Through Grace Not Performance

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So, number one, just a disciple of Jesus. What does Paul say in verse one? You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So you then, or therefore, you, my child, be strengthened. Now, that therefore that you then exist, because he is he's kind of moving from what he's just said in chapter one. Because he wants to tell Timothy how he ought to live and serve and operate compared to many others who have chosen a worse path for life and ministry. Uh, you just look a few verses before and we see it, but really throughout the New Testament, we see there's about two different responses by individuals when Paul finds himself in prison. There's two kind of responses. We see in Philippians 1, one style of response that Paul brings up, that there were those, Paul explains in Philippians 1, that the second they saw that Paul was now behind bars and in their mind out of the way, they said this here's my chance. Here's my chance as a preacher and teacher to get up on the platform. Here's my chance to be the main event preaching the gospel. You read it in Philippians chapter 1, this is exactly what he's saying, that they're preaching out of selfish ambition. So, number one response if Paul's in prison, hey, maybe now I can be the guy. Response number two that we see in 2 Timothy chapter 1, when Paul goes to prison, other former uh uh helpers of Paul, ministers alongside Paul, say, That's it for me. They say, I don't want this thing to end in a prison cell for me. They look to Paul as this leader and say, This is the guy that was supposed to be uh in charge of us all, the greatest missionary to ever live, and where is he? He's in prison. And so they run away. You see it in verse 15 of 2 Timothy 1. You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me. And then Paul starts naming names, among whom are Phigelis and Hermogenes. These two individuals who formerly served with Paul, then saw him in prison, they turned away. They wanted nothing to do with him. But verse 16, may the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesaphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me and earnestly found me. So you have some that are deserting Paul, that are leaving Paul when he's in this vulnerable moment in prison. But then you have some, like Onesaphorus, who come close to Paul in this moment. So this you then, you therefore, my child, really, Paul is telling Timothy, here's the one I want you to be. Here's the response to my imprisonment that I want you to have to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Now, Timothy is someone that needed this pep talk. And he needed it time and time again. If you look back in 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 12, what does Paul have to tell this young man Timothy? Don't let anyone despise you for your youth, but set the example for the believers in speech, conduct, love in the faith. Paul wants to show Timothy, hey, don't let people look down on you because you are young. It's time for you to step up to the plate and be bold in your faith. He needed this pep talk. We see once again in 2 Timothy chapter 1, beginning in verse 5. Paul needs to give Timothy another pep talk. Verse 5, I'm reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure that dwells in you as well. So, first of all, he gives Timothy his spiritual lineage. And by the way, I am certain there are many people in this room that can praise God this morning for mothers and grandmothers and spiritual mothers and grandmothers that led you and served you in the faith. Your grandmother Lois, your mother Eunice, they imparted the faith to you. Now it lives in you. Verse 6 for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is given you uh by the laying of my hands, for God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and self-control. Timothy needed a pep talk. He needed to be reminded who he was and whose he was, and who it was that gave the faith unto him, and what is required of him now that he has received so great a salvation, and what it means to serve the Lord with boldness. So, what does Paul say? I'm sitting in prison, some are tempted to run away, some are tempted to stay with me. You then, my child, here's what I want you to do: be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Notice, not be strengthened by your own power, might, your ability to put this weight upon yourself and do it all yourself. Don't be strengthened by your own power, your own thoughts, and your own great ideas and your clever schemes. Don't be strengthened by that. Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And by the way, I think that's a message to every one of us. Where do you find your strength? I'm talking even the strength to get out of bed in the morning and serve the Lord. Let me ask you a question. Let me give you actually two ways to start a day, and you tell me which one do you think would fuel you more? And so, tomorrow morning, uh your feet hit the ground, and the first thing in your mind is this I better get it right today. I better do well today. Uh, you know, I am a Christian, I better act that way. Uh I better make sure I honor the Lord, and boy, I better stay away from those sins, uh, and I better make sure I do all these good things. And boy, is God watching me and is he gonna get me if I don't get it all right? That's number one. Number two is this your feet touch the ground tomorrow morning, and you wake up, and the first thing you tell yourself is this that I am a child of God. I am redeemed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, that before the foundation of the world he set his eye upon me to forgive my sins, to redeem me of my sins. I get to serve him today, not out of duty, but out of delight. His spirit dwells in me to fuel me in this obedience to him. I am his and he is mine. Which one of those fuels you a little more for the day ahead? The one that says, I better get it right, or God's gonna be mad at me, or the one that says, I'm a child of God and he sends me out to love him and serve him well. That's what it means to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Timothy. You know the faith. You know your grandmother and your mother and what they've imparted into you. You know the redemption that you found. Live like someone that's redeemed. The same can be said of you. Think about in your own life those who have imparted the faith to you. It may be mother, grandmother, father, grandfather, it may be a Sunday school teacher, it may be a coach, it may be a disciple maker of any kind that have imparted the faith in you. You know what the faith is, you know the gospel, you know you've received salvation through the forgiveness of sins, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and now you are empowered to go out and be strengthened in this kind of grace. That's the fuel for your life.

Disciples Who Make Disciples

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You are a disciple of Jesus. But number two is this a disciple of Jesus, and this is what we've got to see in verse two, making disciples of Jesus. Again, a disciple of Jesus, making disciples of Jesus. Look with me at verse 2. And Timothy, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Again, what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Now, one important note there in verse two is this these things you've heard, uh, entrust to faithful men. That word uh uh delphoi really is more general. We can think in terms of men and women, and so uh uh uh uh women, you are not off the hook on making disciples. You're you're in this uh men and women combined. What you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to these faithful men and women who will also teach others. I want you to see something, and there's a slide that's got the four generations that exist uh in this verse. And don't miss the four generations that exist. I want to read it again while we look at the screen. So, what you, Timothy, that's number two, have heard from me, just above that, Paul. So you have Paul to Timothy. I want you to entrust to men and women who then will teach others. And so just in this one verse, you see four generations of discipleship. You see four generations where the faith is being passed down from one generation to the next. Why? Because that's the model of discipleship that exists in scripture, one generation passing it to the next, because Paul knows that's how the kingdom of God expands, and ultimately Paul knows this is what Jesus told us to do. Because Paul's a smart guy, but he's not smart enough to create this idea, only Jesus is smart enough for that. Paul didn't make this up, Jesus made this up. If you uh look with me or I'll read it out loud

Jesus' Method Reaches The World

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to you. Matthew 20, verse 19 and 20, Jesus says these words. Go therefore to his disciples, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. Behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. These are the last words of the Gospel of Matthew. These are the words of Jesus to his disciples. As Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, send his Holy Spirit to empower, as the disciples are about to go out and make much of Jesus and expand the church, Jesus gives them the method. Here it is, go make disciples. He could have said 2 Timothy 2 2, Jesus to the disciples, what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to others who will then teach others. This is the method. Now I want to ask this question, and it's an important question. Does Jesus' method work? Does this method of discipleship work? Because again, as the church, we've we've tried plenty of other ways. We've tried to get creative on our own, and we've tried a lot of ideas, some better than others. Does this work? I think of Acts 1.8. It's kind of paired with the Great Commission there, and Jesus says, You will be my disciples in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It's almost this idea of this expanding geography. It's as if I said, uh, you will be my disciples in uh El Dorado, in Arkansas, in the United States, to the ends of the earth. This expanding idea. And so Jesus says it all starts in Jerusalem, then it expands even to the ends of the earth. Now here's what's interesting. Can we put the map on the screen? And I know you've been missing it, so I wanted to grab the laser pointer back out. Uh uh it's been a little while. But we look at this map, and we'll see if I can get my laser pointer on the right spot because it's so small. Here I am now. You see, I'm a little shaky here, but that little that little piece of land right there is where in Galilee, where Jesus spoke the Great Commission, where Jesus told his disciples to go out even to the ends of the earth. Again, that little dot right in there. Now, you and I this morning, I don't think I need a laser pointer for this, but you and I are sitting right somewhere around there. If I were a little less shaky, it'd be clearer, but right around there. And I've got news for us all this morning. If you were living here in the first century and you heard this news was going there, you'd say that got to the ends of the earth. You'd say Jesus was right about that one. That 2,000 years later, we sit in this room and we have seen that the gospel has gone forth. In fact, if you were in the first century hearing those words, you would thought the end of the earth was probably somewhere around Spain. And yet, further still, the gospel has gone forth to where 2,000 years later, again, Jesus on a hillside in Galilee, we sit here in Elder Eder, Arkansas, and we've heard the gospel and are being discipled by this gospel. Does Jesus' method work? Absolutely, it works. And we look at the method here, and we're a lot like this guy who studied the rules of basketball for this 12-year-old team. And we just say, Jesus has given us the method. Jesus has told us all how to do it. If we'll just read his word and do it like he told us to, and make disciples the method he's called us to, we will see success.

A Chain Of Influence Across Centuries

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This discipleship thing works. Uh, there's a slide of two men, and I want to ask the question what do these two men have in common? You probably look at these pictures and you say, absolutely nothing. One on the left is uh uh Richard Sibs, maybe one of the greatest Puritan preachers. I'm not sure why in the 1600s preachers wore crowns on their heads, uh, but they did. And Richard Sibs on the left, and on the right is uh uh Chuck Colson, Charles Coulson, who was uh uh Nixon's what they call the his hatchet man. He did the dirty work, he was lead counsel for Nixon, and and he was kind of uh heading up the operation to try to cover up Watergate. Uh emphasis on try, to try to cover up Watergate and make sure this doesn't come out. What in the world does a Puritan preacher and and Richard Nixon's hatchet man, what in the world do these two men have in common? Well, Richard Sibs, many years ago, living in the 1600s, wrote a book called The Bruised Reed, all about the work of Jesus Christ. They called Richard Sibbs the heavenly doctor, the heavenly doctor. He could diagnose your sinful condition and give you the perfect cure, which is always, of course, Jesus Christ. Well, this book, The Bruised Reed, came into the hands of a salesman of ten. We don't know his name. History remembers nothing about this guy other than his profession. But this tin salesman. Had a copy of that book by Richard Sives and gave it to a young man whose name was Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter grew up to truly be the greatest Puritan preacher, the greatest Puritan pastor. He wrote a book, A Call to the Unconverted. That book got into the hands of Philip Dodge in the early 1700s, another incredible preacher who wrote the book, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, which got into the hands of William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce was instrumental. Number one, through reading the work of Dodridge and being impacted by his work, instrumental in the British abolition and really led the cause for abolition in Great Britain to end the slave trade in Great Britain. Well, it just so happens that many, many years later, Charles Coulson, who has been in prison for a little bit of time, but has come to know Jesus Christ in a very real way since then, he gets a hold of the work of Wilberforce and it changes so much about his life. And suddenly he sees what Wilberforce did in these abolition days. And he says, I want to see freedom for prisoners like me. Not just freedom of getting out. I mean, there's consequences. We serve our time. Colson served his time, but freedom of the soul. And he took this work by Wilberforce and he created his own great work, Prison Fellowship, which to this day has seen so many prisoners come to know the Lord and has just changed the lives of many people behind bars. What does Richard Sives have to do with Chuck Colson? I gotta tell you, in worldly standards, absolutely nothing. But in the economy of God's grace, through the generations and the faith being passed down, they have everything to do with each other. That's how this faith thing works. These generations go. And by the way, to be part of this, you don't have to be a Puritan preacher. You don't have to write a book. You don't have to work for a president. You don't have to go to prison. What I think about is this. I think about a few people in our congregation that maybe a couple weeks ago worked at VBS and you were hot and you were tired and you were worn out, but but you had one more rotation, and so you taught this lesson about Jesus to these students, and you have no idea of the fact that one of those students might go on to be the next. You insert the blank. Billy Graham, Lottie Moon, whatever you want to put in there, that what you are doing may be shaping the eternities of so many. And you just thought you were teaching a little lesson uh at Rainforest Falls. No, no, no. You're impacting eternity because you're passing down the faith. And so God is doing such rich things in your heart and in your life and in the lives of these children. I think about uh Colby and and and others at Supersummer last week. And that these teenagers, and we've heard reports of uh of one coming to know the Lord and one kind of working through a call to ministry and all these things happening. And and and I'll tell you, Colby's worn out, and he should be. But how might eternity be impacted because of the work that's happening? That's this discipleship journey. Does Jesus' method work? I believe so. We've seen geographically it works.

Why Discipleship Beats Big Events

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Let's look at the numbers for a minute. I believe I've brought this up before, either in this room or Wednesday night, but imagine with me for a moment. Imagine that you and I, that we went up to Little Rock to Simmons Bank Arena. It holds 18,000 people. And here's what we're gonna do. Every day we're gonna fill that arena. 18,000 people are gonna come into that arena every day. And one of us, you or I, we're gonna share our testimony, present the gospel. And here's what's exciting. Every single day, all 18,000 people in that room are gonna come to know Christ. That sounds pretty great. And guess what? Tomorrow, we're gonna do it again. 18,000 people. They all come to know the Lord. The next day we do it, the next day, 18,000 a day, day by day, the whole crowd comes to know the Lord. 18,000 at a time. I I ask you this, if if, and for the sake of illustration, we're just we're just freezing the population for a moment, but but 18,000 a day, every day, how long would it take for the whole globe to come to know the Lord? I'll tell you, 1,294 years. 1,294 years, and the the whole globe would would would at least have come to a knowledge of salvation. Now I ask this question. What if for the next year I went out and and I I met someone and he came to know the Lord, and I just spent a year pouring in to this young man, and I just discipled him for a year. And he became a committed disciple of Jesus, and after that year, I took another young person, and for one year I walked with him, and then the disciple I made takes one and walks with him. And after that year, every disciple made takes another for a year, and just one year at a time we make those disciples, and it goes on like that. And you take a year, and then your disciple takes a year, and you take another year with someone else like that. How long would it take for the whole globe to become committed, discipled followers of Jesus Christ? I'll tell you, it would take 34 years. 34 years. In three weeks, I'm gonna turn 36. That means uh if I if on my 70th birthday, uh y'all kick me out of here and send me packing, then by my 70th birthday, we could say the whole globe is committed followers of Jesus Christ. 34 years just by one disciple making disciples who makes disciples. I gotta ask you, why aren't we doing it? If Jesus has given us the method and the rules and we see geographically it works, we see just running the numbers it works, that discipleship works, then why are we trying everything else other than discipleship? I'm convinced that if First Baptist Church wants to make an impact in El Dorado and around the world, we will uh continue to do what so many have been doing and what we see uh each and every week, and I love seeing it. We're just gonna make disciples. I say, why aren't we doing it generally? Because I want to be clear about something. I see us doing it. I think of uh Gabby, our children's minister, who every time a child comes to know the Lord and is baptized, she begins to pair that child up with a mentor who for a few weeks walks with that child about what it means to be a new believer and to follow Jesus. Disciples making disciples. I think of Colby and others uh in the student ministry who are discipling young men and women. I think of uh all across the spectrum in our church, I see disciples making disciples. And I just want to encourage you, if you're a disciple that's making a disciple, it's worth it and it works. Scripture shows us it's the method. Scripture shows us that it works. And so, more and more, what are we called to be as a church? A church of disciples. First of all, that's who you're called to be, a disciple of Jesus. You don't graduate from the program, you don't fully arrive, but you are continually a disciple of Jesus, and then you do what? You make disciples of Jesus. And so I would just encourage you in one of two ways.

Simple Ways To Start Discipling

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Number one, you might be in the room this morning and you say this, I I I want to be a stronger, closer disciple of Jesus. Here's what I want you to do. And it's bold and it's crazy. I want you to look around this room and find someone older than you that's been a Christian longer than you, and go up to them and say, Can we just meet together and let me just ask you about what it means to follow Jesus? You say, I'll buy you coffee, I'll buy you lunch, and I just want to talk about the Christian life. Find someone to invest into you. Maybe you're a young couple and you're just recently married or soon to be married. Maybe you just need to look at some couple in this room that's been at it a long time and serving Jesus a long time, and you just need to say, Hey, uh we just love to grab dinner, and I just want to pick your brain about what it means to honor the Lord within your marriage. Uh maybe uh you're you're uh a middle schooler and and you're you're heading to you're in junior high and you're heading to uh high school soon, and there's someone you've seen in the youth group in high school, and you just say, they really live out their faith like on the ground in high school. What does that look like? And ask them, just tell me what this looks like. So, first of all, be a disciple and make disciples. Pour yourself out for the sake of others. That's what we're called to do. It can look like many things, it can look like a very formal thing where you take someone and you meet together for coffee or just at at your your work office or at your home and you just walk through scripture together. I want to tell you, when I was in uh tenth grade, a youth minister discipled me, and I went to his office every week, and and of all things, 2 Timothy. We walked through 2 Timothy, and I didn't know what we were up to. I thought we were just hanging out, and he was tricking me. He was discipling me the whole time. And he poured into me. But not only did we meet and read the word of God, he invited me to his home, and I got to see uh, I got to eat dinner at his table with him and his wife and his young kids. I got to see how a man of God operates in his home, how he loves his wife, how he loves his children. I got to see, you know, I if I asked him, you know, could uh uh do you do we want to go to this thing or do this thing, and he told me, no, my my kids have a ball game. I I got to see what it means to turn me down because he's with his kids, and being the man of God is calling to be. This is what discipleship looks like. Being disciples who make disciples. I've got to go this morning, but I want to end with one thing.

Brainerd Story And Final Challenge

SPEAKER_00 33:32

We're coming up on the 250th anniversary of our great nation. I'm excited. We got a lot of things planned this week uh here in town that are very exciting. Uh, but but uh as I've been thinking uh about that and and and thinking about our our nation and thanking God for uh this nation that we have and its history, I think about some of the people uh that did much for this nation spiritually. Some less known than others. I think of one David Brainerd. David Brainerd in the early to mid-1700s, he was a missionary here. Here's his diaries. He was a missionary to the Native Americans here in our country. Before we even were a country, he was a missionary, and he tells this great story about a young man in August 8th of 1745. There was this man in this Native American tribe, and he was bad as it gets, he was a murderer, he was a drunkard, and he is what they call a conjurer, a a practicer of witchcraft, of evil. I mean, this is a bad dude, this is a bad guy. And David Brainerd goes and he preaches the gospel, and this uh murderer, this conjurer comes to know the Lord. And there's this process of discipleship and sanctification and him laying down his past life, but on May 9th, a year later, May 9th, 1746, this man is baptized. So the former murderer, drunkard, conjurer comes to know Christ and is baptized, and then begins to join David Brainerd out on the field, sharing the gospel with other Native American tribes, passing Christianity forward. Well, one day, David Brainerd is out uh preaching the gospel to this tribe. This new convert is with him, and these are the words here. There was an old Native American man in that place where I preached who threatened to bewitch me and my religious people who accompanied me there. There was another conjurer in another village, and he looked at these missionaries. He threatened his words to bewitch them, to do this evil against them. And so David Brainerd there doesn't say a word in this moment, but this new convert whom he has raised up speaks up, looks at this conjurer, and challenges him, says, Do your worst. If I were David Brainerd in that moment, I'd say, buddy, let's not ask him to do his worst. I actually don't want to see that. But this new convert looked at him and said, Do your worst. Why? Why does he say this? Because he told him that he himself had been a great conjurer just like him. And that as soon as he felt the word in his heart, which these people loved, meaning the word of God, his power of conjuring immediately left him. David Brainerd says of this man, this convert, that now he zealously defends and practically preaches the faith that he once destroyed. May God have the glory of the amazing change he has wrought in him. That the former conjurer and murderer and great sinner has come to know the Lord and joins David Brainerd on mission, and even proclaims the good news and challenges all the evil of the day to do their worst, because greater is he that is in us than who that is in the world. And what is happening in this moment, in these early days of a nation, as Christianity is going forth, disciples are being made, who are turning around and making disciples, and the power of the Lord goes forth because there are individuals who take God's word seriously that what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to men and women who will be qualified to teach others. It's not a secret code, it's not a hidden message. We don't have to crack it and figure out how to do it. Jesus gives us the method as the church. All we have to do, we just have to run the plays Jesus gave us. We just go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, because I am with you always, Christ says, to the end of the age. That's the good news. That Jesus has given us the method, promises he'll be with us, and we know that his method is successful. May we be a church that carries this out. Pray

Prayer And Invitation To Respond

SPEAKER_00 38:42

with me. Lord Jesus, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for the method of discipleship that you've been you've given to us, Lord. Let us be a people that carry this out well, carry it out for your glory and your honor. Lord, if there's one here this morning that wants to start the discipleship process for the first time by coming to know Jesus, by trusting in Christ for salvation. Lord, would today be the day that they come? Maybe there's one that wants to join this church, be part of this church family. Maybe there's one that just needs prayer this morning. However, someone needs to be respond to respond, would they respond? And Lord, would we worship you now in these moments? In Christ's name. Amen. Would you stand now? I'll be down front if you'd like to respond in any way. I'd love to talk with you.