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HOW DID YOU SEE GOD THIS WEEK AS YOU FOLLOWED HIM?

WHAT DID GOD SAY IN HIS WORD?

Opening Question:

Have you ever chosen to listen to someone you disagree with on purpose? Why? How did it go?

Paul encourages Timothy fulfill his ministry in our passage from Sunday. Let’s read it again:

1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Reflect Together:

What is the basis for this series of commands (see verse 1)? Why would that be compelling to Timothy? Why would that be compelling to us?

Paul expected people to go after teachers that would tell people what they wanted to hear (v3-4). Does that still happen today? In what ways? How do you avoid that?

WHAT DID GOD SAY TO ME THROUGH HIS WORD?

If all of us have the calling to preach the word and do the work of an evangelist, then where has God given you that calling? To whom is “your ministry” (v5)? And how is it going?

Do you sometimes try to fix people by your own capacities? What difference does it make to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort” with “complete patience and teaching”?

WHAT DOES GOD WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?

Consider how you have gone about your “ministry”. Have you let the Word of God do its work in people, or do you try to force results? Consider how you can preach Jesus and let the Word of God do its work more in the future.