We Believe In One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church

We are looking this evening at 2 Timothy 2:1-10. On Sunday evenings you've been looking at the nature of the church as described in the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed states that we believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. You've looked at the words 'one', 'holy', and 'catholic', and this evening we are looking at the word 'apostolic'.

We want to ask the question, "What does it mean to be an apostolic church?" It's actually a critical question because if you get the answer wrong it will inevitably result in the death of the church. You may be aware that throughout church history there have been two contrasting opinions, two contrasting views on what it means to be to be an apostolic church.

The first view, which I would have difficulty in agreeing with, I would regard as incorrect, argues that bishops are the heirs of the apostles, and so a true church or an apostolic church is a church which can trace its history back to the apostles, particularly through a succession of bishops. So you may find a particular denomination arguing that they are an apostolic church because their bishops can trace back their pedigree to the early church, to the early church fathers and the apostles.

The obvious problem with that view is that it is purely external, it's purely mechanical, bureaucratic - it takes no cognisance of the beliefs or the teaching or the morality of the church or its bishops. In terms of that particular view you can have a legally constituted bishop who is an atheist, and still call it an apostolic church, which is of course an absolute nonsense.

The second view, to which I would subscribe, would argue that a church is apostolic if that church holds to the doctrine and the practice of the apostles as found in the New Testament. It has to do not with a mechanical succession of bishops; it has to do with truth, it has to do with doctrine. It has to do with the gospel.

Well let's dig into our passage for this evening because this passage will show us Paul's enormous concern, not for bureaucratic legalities or for mechanical succession, but his enormous concern for the transfer of the truth, of the Gospel, which at the end of the day is the primary mark of an apostolic church. Ch 1 v1 - the author is the apostle Paul. We know that Paul is in prison as he writes this letter. He's writing shortly before his death. Ch1:2 - he's writing to Timothy, his son in the Lord. Now, Timothy was to take on the leadership as it were of the gentile church after the death of Paul. Paul is giving his final instructions here to Timothy whose responsibility will be to see that the gospel remains pure. The key verse in the passage is probably ch2:2 for us this evening

The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

Paul is acutely conscious of his imminent death, he's enormously concerned that the gospel shouldn't be watered down - that the gospel shouldn't be lost, that it shouldn't be twisted. So he writes to Timothy to encourage him to stand firm, to encourage him not to be deviated from the truths that Paul taught him. He writes to encourage him to pass the same gospel that he heard from Paul onto other reliable men.

What's quite striking as you read ch 2, indeed if you read the whole letter, is what Paul doesn't say. He has very little to say about church government or church architecture or vestments or smells and bells and all those kinds of things. His primary concern is not those things. His primary concern is the gospel - the truth of the gospel and the transfer of the gospel. The background to 2:2 has been an explosion of false teaching inside the church - that's the background.

So Paul's primary concern as he looks at the church is that there are so many who have deviated from the gospel His primary concern is that these false speakers are hijacking the church. They are threatening the purity and the life of the church. Notice how Paul's concern about this threat of false teaching runs throughout the letter. It's the background to what we're looking at here in ch 2. Notice ch1:15. Paul says,

You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me.

Notice 2:16 - the same thing, his concern that there is false teaching within the church. He speaks there of men who have distorted the gospel and wandered from the truth.

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth - men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. (3:8)

He speaks of Hymenaus and Philetus who have wandered away from the truth. Notice the same concern in 4:3-4.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (4:3-4)

He's speaking here of teachers inside the church who no longer put up with sound doctrine. If you have been a Christian for some time you will know that wasn't only a problem in the early church. You will know that's exactly what we find in the church today. We find leaders, ministers, vicars, and bishops inside the church who oppose the truth, who oppose the Bible. It's quite extraordinary isn't it? People who have deserted Paul and his message. Of course, they say, we can no longer believe in miracles or the supernatural, we live in a modern, scientific age. Of course, they say, we can no longer believe Paul's teaching on the gay lifestyle - he didn't know what we know. Of course, they say, we can no longer go along with Paul's teaching on the role of husbands and wives in marriage - he was speaking to his own prehistoric Asian culture; we live in the year 2000.

Now we've all heard those comments before, haven't we? Paul heard those comments. They reveal not only a desertion of Paul and his message which was the crime of the false teachers in that day, but they reveal a desertion of the Bible as our final source of truth. Instead of God's word standing in judgement of us as it should, we've turned it all upside down, haven't we? We now stand in judgement of the Bible. Our final source of truth is no longer the Word of God, no, it's truth by Gallup Poll. 'Truth' is the gospel according to Cosmopolitan or GQ magazine - that's our source of truth nowadays. The false teachers within the church cannot bear the truth - that was true then and it's true today. Nothing has changed.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (4:3-4)

Look at ch 4 v3-4. Paul spells it out both negatively and positively, notice how he states what happened in the church v3 negatively Paul says, "men will not put up with sound doctrine." Positively he says, "Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." Notice verse 4, negatively: "They will turn their ears away from the truth," and positively: "they turn aside to myths." As Dick Lucas says:

"they suffer from a peculiar pathological condition called itching ears, from 'itch for novelty'. And of course in the process they've abandoned God's word, they've abandoned the Bible. Isn't that what we have today in the larger Christian church - a constant itch for novelty, for something new, something different, another experience? And the consequence is that they're no longer apostolic churches, because they've drifted from the doctrine and the practice of the apostles."

One of the elders of another church started to attend our church in Midrand, and the reason he came was because we taught the Bible. He met up with one of his colleagues who was a leader in another church and he said, "Why don't you come and visit our church, but when you do, do bring your Bible with you." At which point that other man said, "Well if that's the case then I'm not coming." My dear friends, I know what they're doing in that church - they're casting demons out of Christians, they're falling and laughing and growling and barking and every other irrational experience on offer. I don't think there's any more appropriate verse to describe the ministry of that church than 4:3

To suit their own desires they gather around them a great number of teachers to say what they want to hear.

No wonder in 2:2 Paul is so concerned, so urgent, that Timothy pass on the apostolic message to the next generation and to the next and to the next. "Timothy my son," he says, "in the context of false teaching, in the context of ecclesiastical novelties and itching ears, you are to be different. The things you heard me say, entrust them to reliable men who will pass them on to others." Now that's Paul's great concern for the apostolic church. Notice how that concern for truth and the gospel passes throughout this letter. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you - guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. (1:13-14) It 's a golden thread running throughout the letter.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. (2:15)

Paul calls on Timothy to correctly handle the truth

But as for you, [in contrast to these false teachers] continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures (3:14)

In contrast to these false teachers

Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. (4:2)

It's patently obvious isn't it? An apostolic church has nothing to do with legal or ecclesiastical technicalities. It has nothing to do with bishops or archbishops, but it has everything to do with being faithful to the teaching and the doctrine of the apostles.

In the great providence of God, the Church of England in South Africa for almost 100 years had no bishop or archbishop, I think that was a great providence of God because we learned that the growth and the health of the church is not dependent on ecclesiastical offices or ecclesiastical structures. If the word and the gospel is faithfully preached, the church will grow and the gospel will spread. There's the dominant theme of our passage - Paul's instruction to Timothy. (Turn back to chapter 2) - to remain faithful to apostolic teaching and to pass it on to succeeding generations. However as you'll see from our passage there are a number of consequences, implications, provisos, in being faithful to the apostolic teaching of the Bible. Let me mention three of them: three provisos, three implications of being faithful to apostolic teaching:

First, you can only be faithful to apostolic teaching and to the gospel by God's grace.

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2:1)

We not only need God's grace to start the Christian life, we need God's grace to continue the Christian life. When you read these 2 letters - it seems from both these letters that Paul writes, that Timothy was a rather retiring, timid person, somewhat nervous

So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God (1:8)

Why else would Paul need to tell him not to be ashamed of the Lord, or of him the apostle - precisely because Timothy was rather timid by nature. That's sometimes true of us as well, isn't it? We're sometimes timid by nature. We're tempted to be ashamed of the gospel. It almost seems absurd when you read these letters, that Paul commands a man as timid as Timothy to be strong. But notice there, it's not a call to be strong in and of himself, He's not saying, "Get some backbone, grit your teeth." No! His strength is to be found in Christ, in the grace of Christ. The Christian life is supernatural. We actually can't stand for God and the gospel in ourselves; we need the Spirit of God, we need the grace of God.

What Paul says here in 2:1 doesn't just apply to pastors and ministers and vicars- it's for all Christians, all Christians who want to remain faithful to the gospel. You know as well as I do that it's very tough to be a Christian. When you are the only Christian in your family, in your office, in your classroom, it's tough. It's tough to go against the flow, it's tough to swim upstream, it's tough to stand for gospel principles when everyone else is looking the other way. People who say that Christianity is a crutch - they have no idea what they are talking about, do they? It's tough to stand for Christ. It takes guts, it takes courage to stand for the gospel and for gospel truths and for principles. That's why we can only do so with God's help, with God's Spirit, with God's grace. It's the prayer you pray when you say "Lord, give me the words, give me the courage to stand for you and the gospel." We're praying for his Spirit and his grace to enable us.

The second proviso or implication of being faithful to the gospel, to apostolic teaching, is that you can only do so not only by God's grace, but if you're willing to face suffering and hardship. You will see that throughout this portion.,

[Paul says] "This is my gospel for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal." (2:8)

Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect (2:10)

There's a very real sense of hardship and suffering. You have the same thing in v3

Endure hardship with us.

Then Paul gives us three examples, three metaphors of what it means to be faithful to the gospel. Sharing the gospel and standing for the gospel and living the gospel is not for the timid, my dear friends. Paul wants to make it abundantly clear that gospel witness and gospel work will be enormously strenuous. It will involve labour and suffering.

So the first metaphor (v3) is that of a soldier - what Paul is saying is that hardship and risk and suffering is part of the territory. That's how it is, he says. Tertullian in his address to the martyrs said this, (I quote) "No soldier comes to the war surrounded by luxuries, nor goes into action from a comfortable bedroom but from the temporary and narrow tent where every kind of hardship and unpleasantness is to be found."

In the same way what Paul is telling Timothy in v3, is that we should not expect an easy time. If you are going to be loyal to Christ and to his word, you will experience ridicule, opposition, persecution. If that's happening to you right at the moment in your family - you're the only Christian there, they often joke about your faith and your Christian stand, perhaps in your classroom, in the board room, in the office. Paul says, "Don't be surprised, you're in a war, you're in an army - that's part of the territory."

For the second example or metaphor (v5) he turns from the image of a soldier to the image of an athlete in the games. No sport is just a random display of strength or skill; no, there are rules and regulations. They are competing as an athlete. What Paul is saying to both you and me, whether you're in a pastoral ministry or not, is that the Christian life is not a holiday camp, it's not a crutch, it's a battle, it's a race, and you've actually got to be disciplined. You'll only get to the end line if you hold to God's rules and God's commandments and if you live by God's word.

In the third metaphor (v6) Paul refers to the hard-working farmer. We all know that farming is hard work, there are no instant results, no quick fix. So it is with living the Christian life: there are many times in living the Christian life when it's a struggle. We share our faith, we live the Christian life in front of others and there's no result, no response, and it's very easy for us to get discouraged and despondent and disheartened. Paul says, "Like the farmer, don't give up, don't throw in the towel, keep going, persevere." Isn't it striking that the non-apostolic gospel that we hear so often says, "Come to Jesus and he'll solve all your problems - come to Jesus for health, wealth and happiness." That is a non-apostolic gospel. The apostolic gospel says, "Come to Jesus to suffer. Come to Jesus to die." That's the nature of the Christian life. Don't be surprised - it is part of the territory.

Let's look at the 3rd proviso in being faithful to the gospel and we must close with this. We can only be faithful to the gospel and to apostolic teaching if Christ is at the centre, at the heart of it all.

Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel. (2:8)

So at the heart of the apostolic message, at the heart of the apostolic church, is the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul reminds us there you'll notice, of Christ's intrinsic nature - he's human, descended from David and he's divine, God supernaturally raised him from the dead. Perhaps you are new here this evening, new to Jesmond, new to the Christian faith. What you need to know is that the Christian faith is not about being religious, not about being moral. We're not talking here about humanitarian activity or religious activity; no, what we're talking about is knowing Christ. We're talking about having a relationship with Christ. The ultimate purpose of every Christian, of every believer, of every apostolic church is not you or me, not your needs or my needs, not the building or the bureaucracy or the denomination. No, the ultimate purpose is Christ, knowing Christ, loving Christ, obeying Christ. The great question this evening is, "Is that true of you? Do you know him? Do you love him?"