How to Stand Firm in Your Faith and Calling

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Sam Allberry
Welcome back to you’re not crazy, Sam, we’ll be joined, as always by Ray ortlund. We’re so glad to have you with us. We’ve got a lot to talk about today as we think about Paul’s persecutions, and yet, the stabilizing resource we have in Scripture to keep us going and stick around, we’re going to talk about a book by a very dear brother of ours, Mike Reeves, a book, we assure is going to be a great blessing to the church.

Ray Ortlund
So Sam, I have a question for you. You’ve done many things in the course of your young years. What is the most interesting job you’ve had yet? Well,

Sam Allberry
the job itself wasn’t fascinating. But I’ve worked for a number of years in a coffee shop in an old, independent family run coffee shop. And I love that job because the task of making coffees wasn’t that exciting. But the people I met were fascinating. And it was in the town where I grew up. It’s not a huge town. And so there were a lot of people who would come regularly that we you would just get to know. And I realized that actually working in a coffee shop was could be a very significant form of pastoral ministry, because you had all these different lives coming before you. The occasional celebrity would would come in some very bizarre characters too. But you sort of saw the whole cross section of of local humanity. I love that no, two days really were the same. Plus the people I got to work with that was actually how I came to, to the Lord was through Christians. I met there and really friendships that

Ray Ortlund
tell us more about that. And how what happened that that made you cross the line?

Sam Allberry
Yeah, so about two or three other Christians. They’re my age, I was 17 ish at the time. 1617. And they were the first Christians I got to see close up. And they were they were delightful. They were people of integrity. As a 16 year old, a lot of friendships at high school felt very superficial and fickle, and kind of political. Whereas these guys, I knew I could trust if they said something, they meant it. But I really respected that. So they invited me to their church, youth group. And I went not thinking, I want to, you know, I want to find spiritual truth. I went simply because I thought I respect these guys. I want to find out more about what they’re into. Which is how I heard the gospel.

Ray Ortlund
What was it about the gospel that? So commonly, we have a short list of really significant objections and reservations about the gospel, and God and mercy satisfies those concerns, and frees our hearts to step across the line? Well, what was a an objection, you had a concern, you had a reservation that somehow melted away. Talk to us about that.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, it was a misconception. I grew up believing, and probably had been fed this from different, you know, different quarters that Christianity was about God, congratulating good people. So I didn’t like it. I just assumed it was people who were pleased with themselves. Yeah. thought they were better than everybody else. So the very first time I heard the gospel, I realized it, it’s about grace. It my entire framework for what I thought it was, was totally different. So that immediately opened up to me the possibility this might be for me, if it’s not for people who think they’re better than everybody else. But for people who don’t know God, I realized I didn’t know God, no idea who God was. So that that really moved the needle for me. And it means ever since then, one of the most helpful questions I’ve, I’ve found to ask other people, is, how would you summarize the message of Jesus? Because that helps me realize whether someone has God that the gospel is grace or not, because so many times when I chat to people, people who will say, Oh, yeah, I’m a Christian. If I say that, how would you summarize the teaching of Jesus almost always what comes back is some form of you’ve got to be good person, you’ve got to, you know, be more oil and and I realized that I don’t think they’ve actually heard the gospel. So that was that was very significant. It was like stepping into a, you know, a whole new world. That was so exciting. Yeah, still is.

Ray Ortlund
Yes, it is. And if I can, if I can respond to what you’re saying so wonderfully with my own clumsy bluntness. I hate religious moralism. with a passion, and I love and delight in and rejoice over and revere the grace of God in Christ with all my heart.

Sam Allberry
So, moralism creates a lot of very immoral people. Oh,

Ray Ortlund
it does, but they look good. Yeah. But never turn your back on them. Yeah,

Sam Allberry
I think I read you tweet somewhere, some time that some of the most evil people you’ve ever met were some of the most religious people who ever met. Yeah.

Ray Ortlund
So this is not new. These things have been going on a long time, and will continue until the Second Coming of Christ. That is the very setting within which we pastors are called to go serve. And second Timothy gives us categories gives us discernment gives us courage, gives us warnings about ourselves included and gives us new pathways to follow. And, and Sam and I were just saying, let me just say an aside here to our friends who are listening, our pastor friends, before we started recording, you and I were saying that this podcast will find its way to a pastor somewhere who is barely hanging on. A pastor who has suffered even as the Apostle Paul is going to talk about that in this passage for the for this podcast, a pastor who has suffered, He knows what it means to be buffeted by ministry. He knows what it means to be held under negative scrutiny, where whatever he says whatever he does only arouses more suspicion and is further evidence against him. He knows what it is to be exhausted. And yet, the workload continues, and so forth. Yeah. We’re hoping and praying this podcast will serve that pastor, that it might give him the wherewithal to keep going.

Sam Allberry
And it’s worth saying, as well, we people give us good, lots of feedback on this podcast. And we’re thrilled that so many non pastors who listen to this, and maybe maybe one thing to bear in mind, if you’re someone listening, who’s not a pastor is is to realize your pastor, despite appearances may be having a much harder time than you realize. And I hope this this podcast, if nothing else, can be a way of having a bit more empathy for your pastor and thinking of ways to be a great support and encouragement to your pastor. Yes.

Ray Ortlund
And every pastor who, because this passage today says, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So Sam right now let’s think our way through with our friends who are listening, Second Timothy, chapter three, verses 10 through 17. What stands out to you in this passage,

Sam Allberry
we touched on this bit briefly, I think, last episode, but Paul begins you, however, then in verse 14, he says, But as for you, which, which means that Paul is looking around at what’s going on everywhere else, and then he’s turning to Timothy and saying, Hey, but we’re which that stands out to me because it means everybody else being into something is no excuse for us being into it, too. We can’t just say, Well, hey, everyone else is acting in this way. So I thought I would join in because actually, the Gospel says to us, a bit you, you however, we are to be distinctive, and it’s yeah, if it’s how everybody else is behaving on social media, or wherever somebody else is behaving in the church, it is never an excuse, to sort of to join in with with ungodliness. So you, however, that

Ray Ortlund
really stands out to me too. And it tells me that a faithful pastor, a pastor of integrity, the gift that God wants to give to every pastor is such a sense of himself, a sense of his identity, a sense of his calling, indeed, a sense of destiny, Sam, that a pastor is strengthened within fortified within. I remember a friend of mine said it’s the it’s the rock in the stream that stands against the flow that makes the water sing. Wow. That’s a pastor. He knows who he is. He knows what he believes. Now he’s not stubborn. And he’s not adversarial in his posture and attitude toward other people. He just knows. He has been set apart by God to the Gospel the way Paul was the way Timothy was the way every faithful pastor is. He knows who he is. He knows what he believes he knows what he’s called to do. He rejoices to do it. He’s not feeling sorry for himself. But he just has a sense of dread Destiny. And he sees that that sort of North Star, however dark the nighttime sky might be, he sees that North Star, the call of God upon his life, he looks up, and he keeps going. Yeah.

Sam Allberry
And Paul is a wonderful example of that here because he goes on to say, you have followed my teaching my conduct my aim in life, my faith, my patients, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings, and it makes me realize how open Paul’s life was to Timothy. And it’s not just you know, you followed my teaching, he doesn’t say, you followed my technique, you know, and I gave you my sermon prep hacks or my you know, his his some techniques for handling different postural situations. He says, not just my conduct. But my my faith, my love. His in internal life was open to Timothy, not just his external kind of behavior. Timothy knew Paul’s heart. So his his patients he, he led Timothy all the way in. That is very telling, I think there’s still a way in which it’s easy for pastors to be a too much of a distance to other people. But you get the sense that Timothy would have seen Paul in all seasons, in stress in joy in all kinds of situations. Paul wasn’t hiding anything. He was he was a very open book, even to the point of being, you know, Timothy would be at it, to say what Paul’s love was like, Paul’s heart was like,

Ray Ortlund
I’m really struck by that. I had not thought of it that way, Sam. Of course, all pastors know what it’s like, we stick our necks out, we we give our hearts away. And we get our hearts broken. Yeah. And so it’s, it’s tempting to stop giving our hearts away. There’s only one thing worse than getting our hearts broken. And that is not getting our hearts broken. Because we are we’re holding back. We’re not taking those risks. We’re not opening up. And here’s the apostle Paul, wide open to this young man. And Paul is Paul’s not regretting it, though, in describing this. He is. I’m going to guess Paul had a sense of, of satisfaction and of purpose, and of gratitude and of delight as he thinks back about his relationship with Timothy. And Paul. Paul had the capacity to give his heart away. Yeah, such that he couldn’t take it back. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

Sam Allberry
And that is presumably a key part of handing over to the next generation. And the question for many of us is who are we? Who are we being like that too? And there’s, there’s no, there’s nothing performative here in Paul’s life. He’s just letting Timothy in. And I’m sure Timothy saw Paul’s sinfulness. And I’m therefore sure Timothy is all Paul’s repentance. But yeah, that’s, that’s it’s an amazing dynamic that the two of them seem to have had,

Ray Ortlund
and I don’t see anguish regrets, oh, I wish I could have a do over. He says from yet from them all. The Lord rescued me. Yeah. He had a sense of the nearness of the Lord, the attention of the Lord, the involvement of the Lord. And then he broadens it out to universal applicability. He says, I’m not exceptional. All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. This is standard issue. In World War Two American soldiers were called G eyes. Because government issue government issue clothing, government issue, weapons and so on. It’s just standard universal, if you’re in the army, government, persecution is government issue Christianity. It’s universal. It’s universally applicable, we will all take hits, which is loving Jesus,

Sam Allberry
we need to be told because it’s easy to look back on porn and think, well, there lots of ways in which Paul was unique. He was an apostle, he had that unique authority. Maybe his sufferings were part of that apostolic, you know, unique responsibility, and he talks quite comprehensively. He talks about persecutions, plural. He mentioned at least three places, Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. And you can imagine there will be other places too, but it pulled us seeming to want Timothy and us to realize just how widespread the opposition was to him. And we don’t have to Paul’s role in being apostles in the way that he was. But we’re preaching Paul’s message. And human nature hasn’t changed in the past few 1000 years. The Gospel deposit hasn’t changed in the past few 1000 years. So we can expect that we will face something of what Paul faced, there will

Ray Ortlund
be collisions. John Stott says, the godly arouse the antagonism of the worldly, including the world they within the church and then Eugene Peterson. In his wonderful book on living well, he says, We are not exempt from hard times. Every page of Scripture documents the opposition that develops when the life of Christ is lived sacrificially. And honestly, now, we might think the life of Christ lived in the world today sacrificially and honestly, people would roll out the red carpet. Oh, my goodness. This is what we’ve been waiting for. No, it’s just the opposite. Yeah, there are three kinds of sufferings we experience. One deserved suffering. We’re foolish. We’re wicked. We suffer for it. Yeah. Secondly, innocent sufferings, natural calamities, racial prejudice. We’re innocent and we get body slammed third, righteous sufferings. We deserve affirmation and encouragement, and we deserve to be lifted up for living sacrificially and honestly, in Christ, and we get body slammed for that. Now, that’s what’s happening here. All who desire to live a godly life will not be applauded. But persecuted, which is why, you know, we’ve

Sam Allberry
talked in other episodes repeatedly about Paul saying, outdo one another in showing honor. There should be at least within the people of God within our churches, there should be somewhere where people aren’t being encouraged. Yes, and godly. Yeah. And I look at that verse. And I think Paul doesn’t just say all who are godly will be persecuted all who desire to live a godly life, which encourages makes, I don’t feel like I often do live a godly life. But I do desire to live a godly life at the very least. But even the desire to live a godly life will lead to persecution. Yeah, that

Ray Ortlund
sense of purpose and sense of calling. And I think these verses are in the Bible, to help you and me and every pastor listening, just to accept too deeply accept and make peace with the buffets, things that are coming our way. It’s not as though something is going wrong. It’s not as though the Lord has forsaken us. And we have some lesson to learn, we might be suffering precisely because we have been faithful to Jesus.

Sam Allberry
Paul talks in verse 13, about evil people and imposters, he says, going from bad to worse, which I think, you know, we shouldn’t be surprised if we’re in a difficult situation that just seems to get worse and worse and worse, that that, apparently is going to be a feature of life in these times. But I’m really struck that he talks about such people deceiving and being deceived. They are victims of the very false teaching that they’re peddling to other people. And there’s a sense in which even those who are evil and imposters and opposing us and persecuting us, there is still a place for godly compassion towards them. And I’m sure Paul, as he wrote that verse couldn’t help but thinking of himself that actually as he was so aggressively persecuting the church, he was doing so as one who had been deceived, yes. And even our human enemies aren’t actually our ultimate enemies where our battle is not with flesh and blood. We need to it may well be in God’s in God’s kindness that some of the people who are giving us the most grief might like Paul, through our own patience and love and care for them. And non retaliation. Yes. Come to know the

Ray Ortlund
truth. It’s wonderful. And which would we rather have losing but having Jesus winning, but being deceived? Yeah. Yeah, Frederick William Faber we quoted him in a previous episode and learn to lose with god yeah, for Jesus won the world through shame and beckons the his road. Yeah, okay. Sign us up.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, when we when we lose Well, the Gospel wins.

Ray Ortlund
Oh, my thank you for saying that. Okay, so first thing is the you however, but as for you this strong sense of calling and identity and mission and even destiny, let’s never be ashamed of realizing. We really are significant, not in ourselves. I mean, not you know, I’m not a big deal and every single one of us but admit, I’m really quite ridiculous. But we have been late holder by the risen Christ, and called follow him.

Sam Allberry
And that’s what I love about verse 14, because Paul has just given us all his bad news will be persecuted, bad to worse deception all over the place. Verse 14 doesn’t then say. So as for you just get out of there and find somewhere quiet. And you know, just hang in there until you can, he says, As you continue bad to worse. So the moral of the story is continue. Yes.

Ray Ortlund
And you don’t need a new gospel. Continue in what you’ve believed from your childhood, when you’re when your mother read your Bible stories as you were sitting on her knee, and in what you have firmly believed. He says in verse 14, so you’re not crazy. You have firmly believed it, keep going. The persecution

Sam Allberry
doesn’t mean we need to start reengineering our message. It

Ray Ortlund
doesn’t mean we’ve taken a false step. Yeah, it might mean we really are following Jesus. I remember John Yates saying, when the that precious man back in the DC area, you know, they lost their church building this historic church, and loved what John said. He said, Hmm, maybe I really am a Christian after all. It’s exactly right. Salesman. Yeah, Pastor, if you are being opposed. The reason might be, you actually are following Jesus. Yeah, keep going. Let’s all keep going. And so that’s the first thing. You however, as for you, this strong sense of identity. Secondly, this, this deep, lifelong growing knowledge of Scripture is the other thing that stands out to me in these verses. Why? Why do you think the Apostle Paul sort of pivots in this paragraph and turns now to the to the consideration of Holy Scripture as a resource?

Sam Allberry
Yeah. And it’s interesting, because if you got a bit more of Timothy’s backstory, you know how from childhood, you’ve been acquainted with the sacred writings, so he’s, again, we’re getting a bit more light on Timothy’s own spiritual development information. But I think part of it is that the Bible, the what we have in Scripture has always been everything we’ve needed. We don’t need a scripture 2.0 for this new times of persecution that we live in God’s word has always been enough. All scripture is breathed out by God, not some of it, or even most of it, but all of it and is profitable. Teaching, reproof, correction, training and righteousness. It’s not just really good at one thing. It is the Swiss Army Knife ministry, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. In other words, we can continue precisely because in in what God has given us through His Word, we have all that we need to serve him faithfully, it doesn’t mean we individually know the answer to every situation. But it means we do have everything that we need. We don’t need to. We don’t need to look elsewhere. Now that we’re in this this time of persecution, we don’t need to look elsewhere. Anything Well, there must be some other additional volume to or some other kind of technique or some other insight that someone has to give us for how to cope. And now God’s word has always been evergreen.

Ray Ortlund
It’s a vast ocean to swim and play in. Yes, it really is. We have not exhausted the possibilities. Two things stand out here. For me, Sam, in verses 14 through 16. One is the phrase through faith in Christ Jesus at the end of verse 15. So he’s Paul is just reminded Timothy, you’ve had this lifelong exposure to Holy Scripture, from from your childhood on. And any it’s it there’s no hint that Oh, that was good for you when you were a kid. But now it’s time to grow up. You know, ya know, the Bible is is perennially relevant. But then he says, its exposure to the Bible with this addition, through faith in Christ Jesus. It’s not just Bible knowledge, yeah. But its exposure to the Bible, enjoying the richness of Scripture which deepens our faith and enlarges our faith and makes Jesus himself more real to us. Yeah, it is possible to have pastoral ministry and even attract a big following with the Bible alone. And it’s just a matter of knowledge, a matter of doctrine and information and you’re the expert, the pastoral expert, and they’re the audience and you’re wowing them with what they didn’t know about the Bible. You can do that you can build a ministry that way. and it doesn’t lead you and it doesn’t lead them to faith in Christ Jesus, personally directly.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, the the question anytime we’re preparing a sermon or a Bible study or anything like that, the question isn’t just what is the text saying, and how can I communicate that but the question is, how does what the text is saying, drive me again, to Jesus, yes, to throw myself at him, to be wowed by his beauty, to depend on his grace. So it’s not just what are the truths said, and all all impart those truths? But how is this text leading me to Christ? Man,

Ray Ortlund
I love that I believe in that. Which leads me to the other thing I’m noticing in verse 16, not only what the pastor does with the Bible, reproof, correction, training and so forth, teaching, but also, what the Bible does for the pastor, verse 17, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. It’s not as though we are in control of the Bible. Yeah. But the Bible is transforming us. We ourselves as pastors, we are being we’re seeing things in a new way. We’re seeing Christ in and we’re being enlarged, filled out. The Lord is filling in blanks in our lives in our understanding that we hadn’t seen before. So yes, we do deploy the Bible, but also the Bible messes with us. Yeah. So be it. Yeah,

Sam Allberry
we are not stood off to one side, helping people look at the Bible. We’re being spoken to, and we speak as those who have been spoken to us.

Ray Ortlund
And when a pastor goes into the pulpit, or the lectern, and explains scripture in a captivating way, but also does so. Wilbur Smith was a Bible teacher in my grandfather’s generation. He went to Lake Avenue Church when I was a boy, I heard him teach on multiple occasions. I never heard Wilbur Smith teach one time without at some point in the course of his sermon, saying, and here’s something I saw in the passage that this week that I’ve never seen before in all my life, yeah. That’s so good. He was on a growth edge of discovery. Yeah. And he himself was, was passed. Roman ministry is not running laps, it’s running cross country. We’re always going into fresh new terrain we’ve never been before in the Bible is our guide book out there. Yeah. That’s wonderful. Okay, Sam, we need to wrap this up. Tell us about a crossway book that that our listeners won’t want to be aware of.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, there’s a book, which is about to come out as we, as we have this conversation now. Which means neither of us have yet got our hands on it. It’s called evangelical Pharisees the gospel as cure for the church’s hypocrisy by Mike Reeves. But we both feel excited about this book, because we both love Mike and have so benefited from Mike’s ministry. He is a one of the most insightful thinkers and writers I think of this generation. And so Mike’s one of those guys who if I see his name on the on the spine of a book called our diet, irrespective of what it’s about, because I know it’ll be it will not just be insightful in the technical sense of giving the information I might not have known before, but it will. Mike is always writing in a way that gets to your heart and helps your heart bow before Jesus again.

Ray Ortlund
Yes. Mike understands gospel doctrine wonderfully, clearly. But he also understands gospel culture. Yeah. And his intuitions, not just his understandings, but as intuitions have been shaped by the gospel. Yeah. Oh, here’s cool thing. I don’t know if you were at Immanuel at this time. I don’t think you were there yet, Sam. But in 2017, when we had a celebration of the Protestant Reformation, on our final Sunday of that celebration, we had this sort of we thought of it as sort of an Emanuel Woodstock. And we had this three hour crazy long service with lots of awesome music and so forth. Mike came and preached an actual sermon of Martin Luthers. Wow, on justification by faith alone. And so we wanted to hear from Martin Luther himself on justification by faith. And Mike took an actual sermon of Luthers and preached it to us it was gloriously hilarious and edifying.

Sam Allberry
Wow. And that’ll be online somewhere. Oh, it

Ray Ortlund
would be Oh, yeah. So yeah, Mike, if you’re looking for a man in this generation, who is really gifted at articulating the gospel, clearly, Mike Reeves is the guy and so we look at this book of angelical Pharisees The Gospel as cure for the church’s hypocrisy, and we’re thinking, well, that’s a word for the times. Maybe

Sam Allberry
it’ll be the cure for the hypocrisy in my own heart.

Ray Ortlund
Well thank you, Sam. Thank you to our listeners. God bless you all.