The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
February 2, 2025
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Epiphany Moments—
Popularity is Not Proof of Success!
14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For 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. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Popularity and success. For many people those two words have a symbiotic relationship. When you have popularity you have success. When you have success you have popularity. Very often this symbiotic relationship between popularity and success begins as soon as a child starts school. A child’s innate desire to be popular is either consciously or unconsciously linked to their innate understanding of success. This symbiotic relationship between popularity and success intensifies in our teenage years and continues into our adult years. This symbiotic relationship between popularity and success can have a powerful impact on our personal life, on our professional life and even on our spiritual life. There are pastors and there are churches that openly make a connection between popularity and success. A successful pastor and a successful church is measured by how popular they are and their popularity is measured by how many people they have in church on any given Sunday.
Popularity and success. While that symbiotic relationship may work on a personal level and well as on a professional level, it is not wise to impose that symbiotic relationship on a religious level. In other words, when you drive by a church whose parking lot is full on Sunday morning, don’t automatically think that they are a successful church. At the same time when you drive by a church whose parking lot has a number of empty parking spaces, don’t automatically think that that church is not very successful.
Last week as the Holy Spirit gave us an opportunity to be a part of the congregation in the synagogue at Nazareth, He revealed to us this Epiphany Moment— Rejection is Not Proof of Failure! This week as the Holy Spirit enables us to listen to the instructions that the apostle Paul writes to a young pastor named Timothy, the Epiphany Moment the Holy Spirit wants us to take to heart is found in the words: Popularity is Not Proof of Success!
Popularity and success. Obviously, those are the two words we are going to focus on today. We’ll begin with the word success. What is success? While the definition of success can vary greatly depending on the context in which it is used, today we need to make sure that we use God’s definition of success. There are two portions of our text that help us to see how our God defines success. The first portion is found in verses fourteen to seventeen. Paul writes, “But as for you, 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, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Note how clearly God’s definition of success is inseparable from God’s holy Scriptures! Success is “continuing in,” “remaining in, “abiding in” in the Scriptures that we have “learned,” the Scriptures we “have become convinced of,” the Scriptures we have been “entrusted with.” Could the Holy Spirit put it any more simply, any more clearly? Over the course of your lifetime you have been learning what God says here in His holy Word. Every time you come here to church your goal is to learn even more about what God has revealed to you. Every time you study your Bible— whether here at church or at home— your goal is to become more and more “convinced” about the Word that your God has “entrusted” to you. Success includes continuing along that path of learning and growing in your faith and in your understanding of who your God is and what your God has done for you.
Success is also found in the words: “…because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Who taught Timothy the Truth of God’s holy revealed Word? Who cradled Timothy in their arms and sang the Psalms to him? Who taught him how to pray, praise and give thanks to his God? It was his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice! (See 2 Timothy 1:5) What a beautiful example of success! What a beautiful example for us to follow! Every time we talk to our children and our grandchildren about Jesus and what He has done for us (Pointing to the cross), every time we teach them how to pray— whether it’s at mealtime or at bedtime, every time we show them how a child of God is to live and to talk and to treat other people, every time we remind them that only the Bible has the power to “make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” every time we bring them here to God’s house— we are a success in God’s eyes!
Emphasizing the fact that from God’s perspective success is inseparable from the Scriptures Paul goes on to proclaim, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
It certainly won’t surprise you to hear me say that Satan has been tremendously effective at leading individual Christians and entire church bodies to abandon the inspiration of the Bible. Many many people are much more comfortable with saying that the Bible contains the Word of God rather than saying the Bible is the Word of God. Saying that the Bible contains the Word of God fills them with the delusion that they have both the right and the ability to pick and choose for themselves which parts of the Bible are God’s Word and which parts of the Bible are not God’s Word— and thereby dispensable.
Success is found in confidently confessing “all Scripture is God-breathed”— even the parts we cannot comprehend, even the parts that rankle our old sinful nature. Success is found in faithfully using God’s Word for “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Why is it necessary for us to continue in this process of learning and correcting and training? Because “success” includes being “thoroughly equipped for every good work”!
From God’s perspective success includes both knowing what God says to us here in His Word and living what God says to us here in His Word! That’s why Jesus says to us, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). That’s why James says to us, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:14-17). This aspect of success is summarized beautifully by our Lord when He says to those on His right, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
The second portion of our text that helps us to understand how God defines success is found in verses one and two of chapter four. Paul writes, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.”
Note once again how God’s definition of success is focused on God’s holy Word. While the apostle Paul originally addressed these words to Pastor Timothy, they apply to each and every child of God who has been called to be His “witness” (Pointing to the cross) to this world— and that includes each and every one of us! “But I’m not a ‘’preacher,’ someone might say.” If ever that thought goes through our minds we would do well to remember that the word which is translated here as “preach” very literally means, “proclaim.”
As Christians we are successful when we simply “proclaim” what God has revealed to us in His holy Word. “Proclaim” who the one and only true God is. “Proclaim” how God’s agape love led Him to send His only begotten Son into this world to live and to die and to rise again for us. “Be prepared” to “proclaim” God’s Word “in season and out of season,” that is, whether the time seems convenient or inconvenient, whether the conditions seem favorable or unfavorable. “Be prepared” to “proclaim” God’s Word with the goal of correcting false attitudes and mistaken ideas. “Be prepared” to “proclaim” God’s Word to rebuke sin, to awaken the spiritually sleeping and to strengthen the weak. “Be prepared” to “proclaim” God’s Word to “encourage” others with the assurance of God’s forgiveness and God’s love.
Once we understand the word success from God’s perspective, then we will be ready to understand how popularity ties in with success. Paul helps Timothy— and us!— understand what can be a precarious relationship between popularity and success. Look at verses three and four of chapter four. “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.”
The future that Paul warned Timothy about so many so many years ago, arrived a long time ago. There are any number of people within the confines of the visible church who refuse to “put up with sound doctrine, with correct doctrine.” If there is a particular teaching of Scripture that doesn’t fit in with their world view, if there is a particular teaching of Scripture that contradicts what they want to believe— they simply reject it. Sometimes they are very vocal about this rejection and try to convince others to reject it as well. Sometimes they very quietly dismiss that particular teaching of the Bible along with anyone who holds to it. With a curiosity for something more “interesting” than the healthy teachings of Scripture, with a yearning for something that will show them what they can do to become a better person they search for someone who will satisfy what their “itching ears want to hear.” Unfortunately, they usually don’t have to search very long or very far.
There are churches that will reject the teachings of Scripture so that their speculations and their opinions, their doubts and their denials can take center stage. There are media ministers who are very well-known and very popular because they consciously avoid preaching on anything that anyone might possibly find “controversial” or “offensive.” Instead of “proclaiming” God’s powerful Law and God’s glorious Gospel, they focus on how a person can become prosperous and successful— on an earthly level. They focus on making people feel good about themselves— no matter what they believe or how they are living their life. “God wants you to be happy, God wants you to be prosperous and I can show you how to achieve those goals.” When a preacher or a church is willing to “turn away from the truth and turn aside to myths” and tell people what the people want to hear, they easily become very popular. They easily fill up the seats in their church.
Does that mean that every time you drive by a church and see that the parking lot is full, that is an indication that they have sacrificed “sound doctrine” on the altar of popularity? Of course not! There are churches within our fellowship that have large numbers of people in church each and every week. Through the power of the Holy Spirit working in their hearts and lives they gladly come to church to hear pastors and Sunday school teachers proclaim God’s Word in all of its truth and purity. Through the power of the Holy Spirit working in their hearts and lives they willingly come to church to confess their sins and to be assured of God’s forgiveness. (Pointing to the cross) Through the power of the Holy Spirit working in their hearts and lives they joyfully come to church to praise their God and to encourage their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Is there a way for you and me to maintain a proper relationship between popularity and success— as God defines success? Yes there is! We can strive to follow the encouragement that the apostle Paul gave to Pastor Timothy in the closing verse of our text, “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”
“Keep your head in all situations” Paul says, or more literally, “Be sober in all situations.” When others are losing their heads to fad theologies and questionable methodologies we need to stay focused on the work that our God has given to us to do— even when that means we “endure hardship.” When people reject the message we have been given to share we need to remember that their rejection is not proof of our failure. When the Holy Spirit leads people to believe and trust in the message we are sharing with them we need to be “sober” so that we do not let any popularity we might enjoy go to our head.
Popularity and success. From a worldly perspective those two words very often have a symbiotic relationship— where you have one you have the other and vice versa. My prayer this morning is that we will always strive for success— as God defines success. And if by God’s grace we do indeed enjoy popularity, my prayer is that that popularity will always lead us to lift our eyes up to the cross and say:
To God be the glory!
Amen