17th October 2026 : 2 Timothy 2 - v 1 - 7

2 Timothy 2 - v 1 - 7

Lord Jesus, we thank you that we can sing those words this evening because we know what you've done for us on the cross. We thank you, Jesus, that we can even do this, that we can come together and worship you. It's all because we've been reconciled back to you, Lord God. Whilst we were still sinners, you died for us. You brought us back. You saved us. You brought us from death to life. And we thank you for that, Lord God. I thank you for stories in this room that I don't even know, but God, you know. I thank you for things that are unseen, that are seen to you, Lord God, how we've all come from somewhere. And because of your grace, we stand here before you, knowing that you are our high priest, knowing that you plead for us, knowing that there is nothing that can separate us from your love because of what you've done for us. Oh, we praise you, Jesus, and we thank you for what you've done. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Good evening, guys. It's so lovely to be with you today. My name is Sammy, as Roger has already said. But it's such a pleasure to be with you guys here this evening. I work for a charity called The Message Trust. Has anybody heard of The Message Trust? Yeah, brilliant. Oh, wonderful. There we go.

So I work for The Message Trust based down in Sharston in Wythenshawe. And it's such a pleasure to work for The Message. I am so, yeah I think when I just think of my life and where God has brought me from and being a young person growing up in a Christian family. My mom is that person that would always tell me about Jesus, no matter whatever it was. I was 8 years old and I don't want to switch the light off because I'm scared of the dark. She would come and she'd say, Samantha, my daughter, nothing will harm you, have no fear. God has not given you a spirit of fear but love and power and a sound mind.

So I grew up with the truth of the gospel all around me. And in my teenage years, I was living a little bit one foot in, one foot out. And by 18 years old, God got a hold of my life and changed my life forever. And I just really wanted to tell other young people about it. I felt like, oh, I wasted my teenage years not living under and with the love of Jesus in my heart and in my life. And I guess I see some young people in the back over there. I was probably around about your age trying to figure this stuff out. And I had a 13, 14 year old girl, I think she was actually, come over to me and she said to me, Sammy, I was asking why she's so confident to preach out loud in a room of like 5,000 adults.

I was at this, what's it called? I was at this gathering called Spring Harvest and she was preaching at the venue and I was like, how are you so confident to do that, Esther? And she says, well, my grandma told me that there's no younger version of the Holy Spirit. And as you sit here in the back today, I want you guys to know that there is no younger version of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, the same spirit that you see at work in our worship leaders and our pastors and elders and reverends and ministers, in the people that you look up to most in your faith, the same spirit that's in them is the same spirit that's in you.

And that was really my heart, is to let young people know from where they are now that God loves them and does have a plan and a purpose for their life. And that's what brought me to the Message Trust. It is my absolute passion to preach the gospel to young people. I love it. It fills me with joy to see the miracle salvation and how blessed I am to have seen that miracle over and over and over again.

The Message we were born out of the local church. Our founder, Andy Hawthorne, wanted to reach out to as many young people as possible in Manchester seeing that there was a depravity of sin in his city. He wanted to see young people encounter Jesus. So he wrote to a bunch of the local churches in and around and said, we have to do something. We need to reach out to the least and the last and the lost. Will you guys join us on this mission?

And I'm sure some of you may know of the mission that took place at the O2 Apollo, where thousands of young people met with Jesus. And out of that mission alongside the church, the Message Trust, we exist today. I've been a part of schools work for the last 10 years, going in and out of schools all over the UK, sharing the gospel with young people. Also, because we are now a global ministry, I've been able to do this around the globe as well. In fact, me and my husband are moving to Zimbabwe to launch the work of the Message Trust over there. And so we are so thrilled and excited for what God is doing.

We are working in creative mission with young people. We are working in prisons, reaching out to those who need to be rehabilitated and need to find freedom where they are. We are working with community groceries, trying to meet the needs of people through preaching the gospel, but also showing it by feeding people who need to be fed, by clothing those who need to be clothed. We are working with young people, training them up to be evangelists and leading a gap year, that I did in 2016. And now we get more fresh young faces coming to be a part of this gap year.

And if you want to know more about the ministry, I've brought lots of different things with me in here. And I'll touch on that in a moment. But I really just wanted to say that this is a bit of my background, right? You can tell she's an evangelist. She's an evangelist. And sometimes in the church we're scared of the evangelist. There are just a little bit too much sometimes, aren't we? But I think actually every single one of us, we are all called to be evangelists. We are all called to be those who are reaching people with the gospel.

And that's what I wanted to touch on today. You know, as we gather today, I wanted to really just open us up to what the Holy Spirit might do as we surrender our lives to say we want to live and be all that you've called us to be. We want to be the church, your hands and feet on the Earth, Jesus. I was thinking about what it looks like for us in our workplaces, within our churches to live missionally, to live missionally. That's what we've been called to do. Whether you work in an office building, whether you are at school, whether you are raising your children up at home, whether you are being a spouse, whatever it is that you are doing, God has called us into a bigger story to live missionally, to let all the world know and have the joy of what we've been singing.

Listen to the assurance of the words that we get to sing. Wouldn't you love to see this area here in Greater Manchester be able to say the words that we were just declaring over ourselves? Wouldn't that be beautiful? And we of course know that one day that will be the case when every tongue will confess and every knee will bow. But man, we are called to be a part of that journey here now on earth. I wanted to give some of the principles that have helped me along the way as somebody when I was 18. I was like, I really want to go out and just reach people with the gospel. Some of the principles that I've learned specifically from reading Paul's letters. And really my prayer is that we would be stirred up afresh in our hearts and that we will be able to look around where we are and say, God, who needs to know you today?

And the passage that I wanted to look at today was 2 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 7.

I'm going to give us a little bit of context about this. It's a letter that Paul has written to his mate and his mentee, Timothy, to encourage him to continue proclaiming the gospel, to continue living out this mission that God has given him, right? Timothy is a young leader and he's leading a church in Ephesus. And Ephesus in the Roman Empire was like a jewel. It was a jewel in commerce. It was a jewel in religion. It was a pagan society. They worshipped many different gods and goddesses, and among them was Artemis and Diana, whose temple was central in many ways to the success and the culture of Ephesus.

The temple of Artemis was seen as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This was the context in which Timothy was called to share the gospel in. No wonder why we see that Paul is stirring him up within this letter to say, oh, fan into flame the gift that God has given you. God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound. By every means necessary, Timothy is in an intimidating situation. He may have been doubting himself and what God has called him to.

Like, really Lord, can I do this? Have you seen what I'm up against? I'm just a young guy. I'm competing with all of this stuff around me. But see, it's in this situation that Paul writes to him to encourage him. Paul reminds Timothy that God has called him and that God has equipped him to do this amazing work of the evangelist, to do this amazing work of being missional. And I want to remind every single one of us here today that God has called us to do the same. And not only that God has called us, but that God has also equipped us to share the good news of Jesus wherever He has placed us.

So let's get into our passage, which we are in 2 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 7. And it says this, Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus. You've heard me teach these things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others. Endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Christ. Soldiers don't get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules. And hardworking farmers should be the first to enjoy the fruit of their labour. Think about what I'm saying. The Lord will help you understand all these things.

The first thing that Paul does in this passage is point Timothy to God. And as we talk about what it is to be missional, as we talk about what it is to share the good news with others, the first thing we must do for one another is point each other back to God. Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus. This is a reminder for every single one of us that we need to rely on the strength which comes from God on a daily basis. That is where it begins.

We want to reach the city of Manchester with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to see our nation turn back to God. We want to see our world transformed by the power of the gospel. It begins by looking to God and relying on His strength for that. We need to rely on God for the strength to reach others with the gospel. See, my friend Ben Jack, an amazing evangelist, he says that our ministry to other people begins first with God's ministry to us. That is that the starting point of our ministry to others is rooted in God's ministry to us. I find it so fascinating that what it is that God frees us from is usually the testimony by which we can then see freedom for other people. Isn't it fascinating? The ministry that we have in this world around us begins with God's ministry to us.

I dare to ask you, what has God done in your life? Do you know that this could be the setting place, the point by which He wants to use you in the world around you? His faithfulness will sustain and empower our lives as we go to reach other people. He is the one who strengthens us. We don't need to be afraid. We need to be constantly connected to God. We need to allow Him to minister to us. He's the only one who can sustain us. We hear many people quote, it's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by your spirit, right? That is exactly what we must do together as this fellowship of people. We must be those who are strengthened by God.

And what are we strengthened by God for? The task that is at hand. And what is that task? Well, Paul goes on to tell us in verse two, he says this to Timothy. He says, you've heard me teach these things. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others. That's the task at hand. Timothy is called to be somebody who passes on truth. The truth that Paul is referring to is the truth of the gospel. Earlier on Paul has said to Timothy, remember what has been passed on to you from your grandmother Lois and then your mother.

There is this theme that Paul is trying to say that you're called to do what you have received, which is pass on truth to others. You see, when we've been invested in, when we've been transformed, when we have encountered Jesus, those of us who has encountered Jesus have a hunger and a thirst to see the world around us transformed by the gospel as well, right? It is almost like just a natural consequence of the gospel. The truth of the gospel goes on and on and on. It's truth that's passed on to one person, then to another person, then to another person. It's the model that Jesus gives us for discipleship in Matthew 28 when he says, therefore go and make disciples of all nations. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. Jesus has in his mind that there is an ongoing nature to the gospel that it will continue to be passed on. And he says this thinking about being strengthened by him and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

I think so much of the people that have passed truth onto me, that have enabled me by God's grace to be stood where I am today. I think of my friend Helena Buckley. She's currently on maternity leave because she just keeps having babies. She just keeps going off. No, I'm joking. She's blessed. We love that for her. But yeah, she's on maternity leave at the moment, but she works in the finance department at the Message Trust. And Helena was my youth leader when I was at that age, when I was one foot in and one foot out. But she continued to pass the truth on to me.

I think of my friend Christina Tucker, who is part of our leadership team in Message Africa. She's actually heading up all of the youth outreach across our Africa network. Christina's amazing. She's just been over. I've just been with her and her family in Cape Town. I think of Christina and how she continued to pass on truth to me when I was one foot in and one foot out. And she persevered and she preached the gospel over and over and over and over again.

I think of my mentor, Hannah Kia, an amazing woman of God who has helped me to mature in my faith day by day. I think of these people who've passed truth on to me. And now I get to be someone who passes truth on to other people. Isn't that amazing that God can do that? I just think it's so cool that God transforms one person into these ripple effects to the gospel. It doesn't just change one person, it's a ripple effect. And whilst this happens naturally because God is at work, second Corinthians 5.19 tells us that for God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people's sins against them, and He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation, that is that God is at work. God is reconciling the world to Himself. God is at work naturally. But that also means that intentionally as people we've been given the message of reconciliation. We are those who get to plead on behalf of God when we say come back to God.

I want to encourage us to be people who pass truth on to others. Simple enough, right? But how do we do that? And isn't it great that the Bible doesn't just tell us what to do, but gives us helpful ways that we can do so? And in this particular passage, there's just three things that I love that Paul says. And I have often called this the gospel code of conduct. How are we supposed to do this?

I go to schools all over the UK and beyond and they always have their code of conduct in the assembly hall. And I was like, oh, what's the gospel code of conduct? And I think Paul gives us one in this passage. Paul uses three metaphors to show us how we are to fulfil our calling to pass truth onto others. There's three things that we can hold onto that can be helpful to us as we want to make disciples. And the first one is this. Paul uses the image of the good soldier.

I would say that one of the first things we need to do is focus. Verse 4 says, endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Soldiers don't get tied up in the affairs of civilian life. For them, they cannot please the officer who enlisted them. Soldiers are focused. They are very much loyal to the person who's enlisted them. They are strong and they are dedicated. The idea that somebody would join the army because they want to have a fun time just doesn't make sense, does it? So I feel like what Paul is saying here is that in our call to make disciples, to pass truth on to other people, we need to remember that it's actually not gonna be easy. It's gonna take discipline. It's gonna take discipline that when I'm out and about and I see someone, instead of just scrolling by on my phone, instead of just like going, oh, well, maybe this is not the time, I'm gonna have to be disciplined, right? It means that there's... going to be a need for endurance. There'll be some people who were as stubborn as I was that you have to continuously reach out to. It requires strength. Soldiers train for the task at hand.

It took years for those women to break through to me with the gospel. It took years. We're talking literally from when I was about 12 to 13 through to I was about 18 years. of them gently and firmly correcting and leading me and pointing me to Christ. They were focused though and they didn't give up. Paul says soldiers of God are not side-tracked by the things of this world that pulls them away from their primary calling, right? There are so many things.

I often wonder, maybe I'll get in trouble for saying this and I am being recorded. But for me, genuinely, I wish that the Message Trust didn't exist. I genuinely do because it means that every single one of us as people that are in the church, we are taking seriously the call to reach other people with the gospel. I want the church, and when I say the church, I'm including myself here in the body of Christ that I represent. I want the church to run us out of business because we are being that in the world. Because that's what we've been called to do, right?

But there are so many things that take off focus. And I'm not saying that all of them are bad things. I think we've been called to enjoy life. When you read the creation narrative in Genesis, when I often explain it to young people, I will say to them, like, I believe that God created us to enjoy relationship with him, to enjoy relationship with one another, and to enjoy the amazing world that God has made for us. In all of his fullness within the boundaries that he set, we were created to have enjoyment within that right order, right? So I think there are things in our lives that we are supposed to do and enjoy, and that's fine. But when these things become the main thing and we forget that the main call on our lives is to follow God and to make him known to others, that's when we have to think, are we being distracted by the things around us? For me, it can look like doom scrolling, watching an entire Netflix series in five days. Don't judge me. Online shopping, all of these other things that can take our focus. But there's this quote that strikes me.

All people are an instant away from being face to face with God. All people are an instant away from being face to face with God. How does that make us feel about the urgency that there is to make disciples, to pass on truth to others? My mom would often say to me that she will never make it to heaven without any of her children, without being able to give an account as to how she shared the gospel with her children. And I've always found that to be something I really admire about her.

I want to be somebody who thinks like that when it comes to my friends. I have so many friends who aren't walking with the Lord for various reasons, some who just are completely non-Christian, some who have been hurt in one way or another and have stepped away from their faith. I need to live with this understanding of eternity on my heart and on my mind. And I just want to challenge us like, do we do that? We need to live a life of that urgency to go out and to say, there is a God who loves you. There is a God who wants to forgive you and help you, come and know Him.

The second image that Paul gives us here is one of integrity when he calls upon the athlete. He says an athlete cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules. He probably would have been thinking about the Greek games in his mind of which athletes had to swear an oath to the gods that they would not cheat. And if they did cheat, they'll be punished severely. I think Paul wants us to know that if we want to make disciples, if we want to pass truth onto others, we can't cut corners. And there are many different ways that as the body of Christ, we have begun to cut corners.

That's some of the different ways that we are all becoming very, very, it's the reason why we're seeing a lot of division across the body of Christ. And some of it is like very much warranted because we're like, oh, There are many amongst us who are starting to cut corners. We're not preaching the gospel and the full gospel. We're not saying that all scripture is God breathed and is useful to the person that is reading it, right? We are willing to cut corners that we can be able to say, this many people were baptized in my church. This many people came to know Jesus, right?

Billy Graham, one of the most amazing things about Billy Graham was for him and his friends, they decided that they were going to be people of integrity when it came to this. In his day and age, a lot of evangelists were falling left, right and centre. There was a lack of integrity when it came to things like reporting numbers of salvation, a lack of integrity to people being committed to their wives at the time. Loads of things were going on that they decided to do what was called the Modesto Manifesto. And they set aside these few rules that they were going to live by so that they can be people of integrity, who do not cut corners, who follow the rules because that's how fruit will last.

I had to pray for one of my friends for eight years before I got her into a church. Eight years before I got her into a church. Praying for her. She's seen me when I wasn't walking with the Lord and my life was a mess. Now she's seen me as I'm walking with the Lord and she's intrigued, but she won't take that next step forward. Praying for her for eight years until she stepped foot in a church. And for the cheek of it, wasn't even because of me. It was because her sister started coming to the church that we planted as the Message Trust because of all the outreach we've been doing at Wythenshawe and I was like, you're at the message church. Are you joking me, mate?

And then she started this beautiful discipleship journey where she was coming to Jesus. It's kind of gone a little bit left, but I believe that God is at work in her heart because I saw her actually open up her heart and her life to Jesus. And I believe that God will continue to work in her life. You see, there's a temptation a lot of the time for me to preach an airy fairy gospel that would have gotten her in sooner. To just tell her the bits that are really nice and then she can kind of come to Christ and figure the rest out. How often have we seen brothers and sisters doing this across the body of Christ? We can't go into our workplaces or our communities and our families and preach a watered-down gospel just to appease and appeal to people's emotions. We need to be people who tell the truth, the whole truth, with integrity. Integrity the athlete who follows the rules.

And the third and final image that Paul gives that has been really helpful to me is that of the hardworking farmer. And I think this speaks to diligence. Verse six, he says, hardworking farmers should be the first to enjoy the fruit of their labour. But isn't it interesting that sometimes they're not the first to enjoy the fruit of their labour? I grew up with from a farming background. I didn't grow up in it. I was almost like, did I grow up in it? I didn't really witness it. My mum tells me about it. Basically, both my grandfathers on both sides, mum and dad, were farmers. And my late grandfather, Job Jabangwe, was a farmer. And my mum tells me all these stories about how he would get up very early in the morning and he would water like stuff and plant things and clean and tidy and do all these different things. He would work so, so hard because he wanted there to be food for the family. He wasn't always the first to enjoy the fruits of his labour, but the fruits of his labour meant that everybody was able to eat and everybody was able to be full because of his hard work.

I think a lot of the times in being those who live out the call to pass truth on to others, there is that reality that we're not always going to see instant results. And like with my friend Abby, we're not always going to be the people who actually get to enjoy the first fruits of that because somebody else might. But still we have to work hard. We have to be faithful. We have to continue sowing seed. Because you don't know when God will send the rain, when God will send the worker that will then bring about this amazing moment. So we have to keep going regardless of whether we can see the results instantly or not.

Eight years praying for my friend. Without diligent, hard-working sowers of the gospel, I would not be able to go into schools and see young, in schools, guys. We're not saying like we're taking the kids primarily into a church. We have this amazing new lesson that my friend Rachel has written called Jesus, the Ultimate Influencer. In this lesson, we teach the entire truth of who Jesus is in school. That would not be possible without those first people that stood alongside Andy and the team to bring about the first Worldwide Message Tribe concert that happened in the Apollo. It would not be possible were it not for Andy and for Tim and for Emma, my mum. You begin to then paint a picture of all these diligent people who came before, who sowed the seeds that we get to reap the harvest for. I want to encourage you that if you haven't seen the fruit of all that you have sown, God is faithful. God is faithful.

Sometimes I get so intimidated when I'm preaching to people who are older than me because I know that you guys have far more to teach me than I can ever teach you. But I actually want to say thank you to people who are faithfully walking with Jesus, who are ahead of me, just as those who are younger than me can look to me. And I can also be an example to them. Thank you for your diligent work. Thank you for all that you continue to do. And there is still more for you to do. And I cannot wait to see who will be able to say that because of the stuff that you have done in your lifetime, that they've been able to reap a harvest for the Lord.

Friends, we're called to be people who pass on the truth of the gospel. Let's be strengthened by this, by God. Let's be strengthened by the one who has began a work in us first. His ministry to us is our ministry to others. Let us focus on the work at hand, knowing that eternity is but a moment away. Let's have integrity in what we do. Let's look to Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith, the one who had the integrity, the one who lived this life in a way that we can look to. And let's work hard. Let's not be side-tracked and distracted by all the stuff of this world. Let's work hard.

And as we do that, I think the most beautiful thing is that we meet Jesus on the mission field. We meet Jesus on the mission field. My friend Ben says, we spend so much time going, God, where's your presence? Where are you? I want to know where you are. But we've been given a verbatim promise by Jesus that when we go out and we make disciples of all nations, I am with you. We find his presence on the mission field. And that's because we see Jesus in every single one of these metaphors and examples. Jesus is the commanding officer. He's the one who not only enlists the soldier, but be sure of the fact that he will govern and look after the soldier.

You're never alone in what you've been called to do. Jesus is known as like the visible image of the invisible God, right? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus, when we look to him, we find the instruction for how we should live. He is our living instruction. When we think to cut corners, when we are tempted by anything else, let's look to Him. Let's look to His word. Paul tells us that His word is useful in building us up for everything that we've been called to do. It's useful in rebuking us and correcting us. It's useful in making us wise for salvation. Jesus is the living instruction that we can look to, that we can never have to cheat and cut corners but we can preach the truth and the whole truth that is him, the way, the truth and the life.

Finally, Jesus is the provider who sends the rain that waters the farmer's diligent work and produces a harvest. His words as he sends us are this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I don't really know what it's been like for you when it comes to this part of church life. It may be that you are like, we are on it. We are preaching the gospel. We are reaching out to our local community. I pray that this is just a further encouragement to be something that continues to spur you on.

I don't know if it's been a hard season. I journey with people from all different parts of the church and I journey with those who have witnessed a lot of fruit from what's been called the quiet revival where people are literally coming into their churches, flooding in every single day. And then there are those that have not really been able to say that they've seen that. Like what's going on there, right? And my encouragement is the same. God is with. You are just called to do and be faithful in where he's placed you.

So I don't know how you felt here in this. I want to encourage you today that I genuinely believe this, that as you are faithful to what God has called you to do, he looks and he says, you are my child. I'm delighted in you. Keep going. Fan into flame the gift of God. In the same way that Paul encourages Timothy, I believe that the Holy Spirit encourages you today to say, keep going.

I pray that today we would find a fresh strength if we are tired. I pray that we would look again to the one who does and can and will empower us. And I wonder even as we've been talking about how imminent eternity is, if God has placed anyone on your heart right now that you can think of, someone that you know in your world who doesn't know Jesus. A friend, a neighbour, a family member, someone you see every week, someone you've not seen in years. I wonder if a next step that you can take today is just to diligently pray for them. Just diligently pray for them. God, what can I say to them? And then strike up a conversation. Maybe invite them to church. Take that step, take that first step, be faithful and know that God will do the rest. We do our best and God does the rest. That's all that we are called to do. Let me pray for us.

Oh God, I thank you so much. I bring us again to the beginning of how we started this evening, praising you and thanking you for salvation. Prophetically speaking about how all the earth will shout your praise. We thank you, God, that we have been saved from death. But we're not just saved from death. We are saved for life and life to the full. And God, I pray that you would break our hearts for people who don't have that assurance. Break our hearts Lord Jesus for those who are slowly perishing in this life. Break our hearts Lord God. May we live with eternity on our minds and on our hearts. May we live with the names of those who don't know you on our lips, diligently praying for them and bringing them before you. Holy Spirit would you inspire us? Would you tell us the words to say? Jesus, you said that we would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we say, Holy Spirit, give us power. Give us power to go out and make you known in all of the world. I pray, Lord God, that this message does not fall to make anyone feel guilty, but to make us feel excited for what we've been called for. And thank you, God, that as we say, here am I, send me, that we do not go alone, but we go with you. We are co-missioned. We go with you. We are co-workers with you. Lord, what a privilege and what an honour. I pray that you would give us the joy of what that means for each and every single one of us afresh today. In your name we pray. Amen.