Acts 16:1-5: Making The Greatest Possible Impact

Acts 16:1-5: Making the Greatest Possible Impact

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Acts, and today the next passage we come to is Acts 16:1-5. It says,

1 Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. 2 He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Over 100 years ago, a man named C. T. Studd wrote a poem in which the following two lines are repeated at the end of each stanza. And I believe these two lines are just as relevant now as they were the day he wrote them. They read, “Only one life 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.” “Only one life 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.” Now, if you do a little reading on C. T. Studd, you’ll discover that he didn’t just say those words—he lived them. Studd was a missionary in the 1800’s first to China, then to India, and then finally to Africa. But before he was a missionary, he was actually a very famous cricket player for England. Cricket was a very popular sport in England, and C. T. Studd was very good. And his talent actually won him international fame even beyond England. But he became convinced that God was calling him to do something other than play cricket—that God wanted him instead to be a cross-cultural missionary. To put it in some of Studd’s own words, “I [knew] that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come.” So Studd packed up his bags and left for China, and then, I like I said, he’d later go to India and Africa as well, where he ended up dying on the mission field—just like so many other missionaries of the 1800’s. So Studd took his own words seriously. “Only one life 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.”

And I don’t know about you, but those words really speak to me. Because the reality is that life is indeed so short. We’re here one moment and gone the next. All the stages of life go by so quickly. And whenever I think about that, it makes me want to make sure that I use my life in the wisest possible way. I want my life to count for something. One pastor named Tim Kizziar said it well when he stated that “Our greatest fear…should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” You see, it doesn’t matter how “successful” you are if you’re successful in the wrong things. So, for me personally, I want to be successful in the right things—as I hope you do as well. And that means living in such a way that our lives make the greatest possible impact spiritually on the people around us. 

Because let me to remind you that—for those of us who are Christians—we have treasures in Christ that are the greatest of all treasures. We’ve been forgiven of our sins, clothed with Christ’s righteousness, redeemed from our spiritual bondage, indwelt by the very Spirit of God, adopted into God’s family, and made heirs of a heavenly inheritance that’s infinitely greater than we can even comprehend. And, of course, the greatest treasure of all is Jesus himself—the Treasure of all treasures. And we should want to share this Treasure with others and make the greatest spiritual impact on them that we can possibly make. 

Yet that raises a very legitimate question. How exactly can we make this kind of an impact? What specific approach should we take if we want our lives to have the greatest possible effect on others and lead them to a full enjoyment of the Treasure that is Christ? Where do we even begin as we seek to do that? 

Well, that’s where this passage in Acts 16 comes in. Now, perhaps you think I’m about to talk about Paul’s missionary travels—how he crisscrossed the Roman world in order to proclaim the gospel and start churches. And that certainly is a key way in which Paul made an impact. However, that’s actually not what we’ll be focusing on. Instead, our focus will be on what I believe is the most notable feature of this particular passage, which is the fact that Paul recruits a young man named Timothy to join him. 

Look again at verse 1: “Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.” So here we see Paul embarking on what’s often known as his second missionary journey—which you can see on the map here—and traveling back through two cities he had already been to on his first missionary journey, the cities of Derbe and Lystra—outlined there in red. Those of you who have been attending here regularly may recall Lystra as the city were Paul was stoned by a group of Jews and left for dead. And in Lystra now on his latest visit, Paul encounters a young man named Timothy who apparently shows a lot of potential. It also helps that Timothy has a Jewish mother and a Greek father so that he’s able to relate to both cultures. That would undoubtedly be quite helpful for the kind of missionary endeavors Paul was planning. Today, it might be like going to southern Texas as a missionary and having a mom from Mexico and a dad from the United States—no doubt a very helpful thing.

The text then says in verse 2 that Timothy “was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.” So even though Timothy was rather young—scholars estimate he was probably in his late teens or early twenties—he had already gained a reputation for himself not only in Lystra but also in the neighboring town of Iconium. It says he was “well spoken of” in both cities. Therefore, verse 3 tells us that “Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him.” So Paul circumcises Timothy so they don’t offend the Jewish people they’re trying to share the gospel with and then takes Timothy with him as he goes from city to city engaging in ministry—as we see in verse 4-5. So, from this point on, Timothy’s going to be one of Paul’s main traveling companions.

And, at first glance, this might seem like an incidental detail—like just one more fact in a narrative that records many facts. However, I believe it illustrates a foundational principle of how Paul approached ministry and sought to make the greatest possible impact with his life. He didn’t just engage in the activities he’s best known for like proclaiming the gospel where it had never been proclaimed before and starting a bunch of churches. He was also very deliberate about investing in key individuals in the context of what we might call discipling relationships. And Paul’s determination to do that with Timothy is what I believe is the main idea of this passage. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him so he could make a significant spiritual investment in Timothy’s life through a discipling relationship. Again, Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him so he could make a significant spiritual investment in Timothy’s life through a discipling relationship. By the way, a discipling relationship is simply a relationship in which one Christian actively and intentionally helps another Christian grow toward spiritual maturity. If you’re taking notes, feel free to write that definition down in addition to the main idea. A discipling relationship is one in which one Christian actively and intentionally helps another Christian grow toward spiritual maturity.

Think about all the things that Paul and Timothy would do together. They would travel together, eat together, swap stories together, and have countless other conversations together. Acts also records how the two of them engaged in ministry together from one city to another, and Paul even lists Timothy as a coauthor along with himself of the New Testament letters of 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Paul and Timothy basically became like a father and son, spiritually speaking. In fact, Paul even refers to Timothy as “my true child in the faith” in 1 Timothy 1:2 and as his “beloved child” in 2 Timothy 1:2 and as his “beloved and faithful child in the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 4:17. 

Not only that, but it’s in the context of this discipling relationship that Timothy had the opportunity to observe Paul’s life and ultimately to imitate his life. Paul says to him in 2 Timothy 3:10-11, 10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra…. And that’s the way real discipleship happens. It doesn’t happen from a distance or in some kind of classroom setting but rather in the context of a meaningful relationship with someone who’s more mature in the faith. And that’s because there are so many things in the Christian life that are caught rather than taught—things that people often need to see in someone else’s life before they can live out to any significant degree in their own life.

In the case of Paul and Timothy, Timothy had personally observed Paul on countless occasions and had countless opportunities to see how a mature Christian approaches different situations. Not only that, but we can only imagine the conversations they had—the topics they discussed, the questions Paul answered, and the insights he provided for Timothy. So you could probably boil it all down to two basic elements of a discipling relationship: observation and conversation. It’s through observation and conversation that people learn the most—and grow the most toward spiritual maturity. 

Consider also the fact that this is the way Jesus approached ministry as well. Yes, the Bible does record him preaching to crowds of thousands, but it also describes how he chose twelve men and made those twelve his priority. Just like Paul and Timothy, Jesus and the twelve traveled together and spent time together day in and day out. As a result, these men had the opportunity to observe Jesus doing all kinds of different things and were able to have formative conversations with him on a daily basis. By the way, how cool would that be? And again, that’s what disciple-making looks like. It’s about a more mature Christian spending intentional time with a less mature Christian so that they can model biblical virtues and have conversations about meaningful things.

So that means—and hear me when I say this—programs don’t disciple people. Rather, people disciple people. Again, programs don’t disciple people; people disciple people. Now, don’t get me wrong: programs have their place. There’s a lot you can learn through programs—especially when it comes to knowledge and information, which are essential for spiritual growth. You can’t grow spiritually apart from an ever-deepening knowledge of the Bible. However, Bible knowledge by itself is terribly incomplete and is certainly no guarantee at all of spiritual maturity. Like if you could install a USB port in someone’s head and then stick in a USB drive and download volumes upon volumes of Bible knowledge and theology into their brain, that wouldn’t make them a mature Christian. In fact, it might harm them spiritually by making them proud. Any time your Bible knowledge significantly outpaces the other aspects of spiritual maturity in your life, there’s a big risk that it’ll end up not increasing your godliness but rather increasing your pride—so that you become what the Bible refers to as “puffed up” with knowledge. That’s why discipling relationships are so critical—because they promote balance. They facilitate not just the transfer of Bible knowledge but also the transfer of an entire way of living—complete with all the habits, interests, perspectives, attitudes, practices, and passions that mark a godly person. No other mechanism or channel is able to impart all of these various aspects of godliness in the proper balance the way discipling relationships are able to do. 

It’s similar in many ways to being trained for new job. I remember, back when I was in college, I worked for Sears selling appliances. And when I was first hired, I wasn’t allowed to go straight out to the sales floor. Before they let me go out to the sales floor, I first had to spend hours and hours in a back room doing “training” on a computer. I want to say it was least 30 hours of training in that format. And for a portion of that training, they had these fictitious scenarios where you’d have to sell products to customers and deal with unhappy customers and work your way through several other kinds of common situations—all right there on the computer. Needless to say, I kind of wanted to bash my head against the wall on several occasions during that training. If it was possible to die from boredom, there’s no question I’d be with Jesus right now. And I think part of the reason it was so miserable is that I could sense—as I believe most people can—that that’s not the method through which the best kind of learning takes place. That kind of training might be okay for information transfer about things like company policies and similar matters, but it’s a terrible way to teach many of the things they were trying to teach. The best way to learn those kinds of things would be to shadow an experienced and successful salesperson and observe what they do and have conversations with them—again, observation and conversation. 

And it works the same way with the Christian life. Again, programs don’t disciple people; people disciple people. And they do it by intentionally spending time with those they’re seeking to disciple. Now, it may not look exactly the same today as it did with Jesus and his disciples or with Paul and Timothy. I don’t know of anyone in this church who’s planning to venture out on some sort of itinerate gospel ministry and who has the opportunity to invite someone else to come along with them as they travel around the country. That’s probably not a very common scenario. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t still be deliberate about spending time together for the purpose of discipleship. In our context and culture, this would probably look like some sort of regularly scheduled meeting between the person doing the discipling and the person being discipled. It might be once a month, twice a month, or even every week. 

And let me take a few moments to get super-practical and give you an idea of what a typical meeting might look like. Now, please understand that what I’m about to outline isn’t some sort of requirement or mandate. This is just what I’ve personally been doing with several guys in the church and have found very helpful. And just so you know, I rarely have a meeting where I hit all of these items I’m about to list, but these are the kinds of questions and discussion topics that regularly come up. 

After beginning the meeting with prayer, we often talk about how life has been going lately. Sometimes this leads to a very meaningful discussion about an issue that comes up, and sometimes it doesn’t. Then the main component of the meeting is discussing what God’s been teaching us in our personal devotions during the past week—our personal times of prayer and Bible reading. So first one of us will take a turn sharing and then the other will take a turn since we’re usually reading two different things. And the things we share are usually based on journal entries from throughout the week. I’ve found that writing a brief journal entry when I read the Bible helps me get a lot more out of my reading time and also gives me something to refer to in the discipleship meeting. Then after that, we’ll typically recite any Scripture we’ve been memorizing. For example, right now I’m memorizing the book of 1 Timothy, so when I get together with some of the guys in different meetings, I’ll recite my passage and they’ll recite theirs. And having that accountability spurs all of us on to memorize Scripture much more faithfully than we would if we didn’t have that accountability. 

After that, we’ll ask agree-upon accountability questions related to personal struggles in life or anything that we want to keep an eye on. So this is the time to discuss things like the health of your marriage if you’re married or a struggle with pornography if you have that or whatever topics you’d like accountability for. And then one thing that I think is especially important to discuss at the end of the meeting is whether you’ve had any gospel conversations during the past week or if you’ve even tried to reach out to a non-Christian in any way. Then you can spend some time praying for the specific individuals you’re trying to reach out to as well as for any other needs or issues that came up during the meeting. 

Now again, this whole outline is just a suggestion. You don’t have to follow this. And you probably won’t have time to discuss all of these things in depth every single meeting anyway. These are simply the kinds of things that many of your meetings might include. 

And along those lines, let me emphasize with all of this that the most important thing isn’t so much what exactly you do together but rather the kind of person that you are. I’ve even heard it said—and heartily agree—that you can teach what you know, but you’ll reproduce who you are. You can teach what you know, but you’ll reproduce who you are. So don’t obsess about designing the perfect discipleship meeting that has the perfect balance of everything. There isn’t any magical formula for this. The most important element by far isn’t the meeting anyway but rather the kind of person that you are and the degree of godliness that you consistently exhibit. That’s what’s going to make an impact on people. 

And, by the way, parenting works the same way. In fact, parenting is the ultimate discipling relationship. And it’s quite similar to other discipling relationships in that it’s not primarily about designing the perfect family devotion times or figuring out the perfect regimen for family devotions. Rather, it’s about modeling godliness for your kids and letting them see what’s important to you. In fact, let me rephrase that. They will see what’s important to you. You can’t hide it. So make sure you’re truly pursuing things that are worth pursuing and living a life that’s worth imitating. Again, you can teach what you know, but—more often than not—you’ll end up reproducing who you are. 

And, returning now to discipling relationships in general, let me encourage you to think about opportunities you may have to invest in other people in this way. Hopefully, this is something that every single Christian in this room aspires to do. In fact, I’ll even go a step further and say that we’re commanded to do this. In Matthew 28:19-20, that we quote at the conclusion of every church service, Jesus tells us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say to merely “make converts of all nations.” No, the command’s much more comprehensive than that, isn’t it? He says to “make disciples of all nations.” He then explains that that involves “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Friends, if that’s not a mandate for discipling relationships, then I don’t know what is. 

Now, maybe there are some here who are listening to what I’ve been saying and agree that this is a good and biblical thing but who just don’t feel ready to disciple someone one yet. If that’s you, let me first say that you might actually be more ready than you think you are. You don’t have to be a perfect Christian in order to disciple someone. If that were the case, none of us could disciple anybody. So maybe there are many areas in which you’re not very strong. That’s okay—because, get this, all you have to do in order to disciple someone is share with them what you do know, not what you don’t know. Think about that. That’s a statement that’s both obvious and yet potentially revolutionary at the same time. All you have to do in order to disciple someone is share with them what you do know, not what you don’t know.

However, even after considering that reality, maybe you still don’t feel ready to disciple someone. If that’s the case, you really need to be seeking out someone to disciple you. I mean, think about it. Jesus has commanded us to make disciples. It’s a command. We call it the Great Commission for a reason…not the Great Suggestion. So if you don’t yet feel equipped to actively and fully obey the Great Commission, then you need to find someone to disciple you to help you progress toward that level. So…join a Community Group, get to know different people in the church, find someone who can disciple you, and then ask them if they’d be willing to do that. Then, hopefully one day in the not-too-distant future, you’ll be in a position to pass that on to someone else. That’s the pattern we see in the Bible—disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples. 

We see this pattern especially clearly in 2 Timothy 2:2. Paul tells Timothy, “[W]hat you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” So notice how Paul’s discipleship model worked. Paul discipled Timothy, Timothy was then supposed to disciple “faithful men,” and those “faithful men” would then disciple “others.” That’s four spiritual generations: Paul, Timothy, the “faithful men,” and “others.” That’s how discipleship works. Someone disciples you, and then you in turn disciple others and then train those disciples to make disciples of their own. It’s what we commonly call multiplication. We don’t just want to add disciples as a church. We want to multiply disciples. And we do that by making disciple-makers. 

And the difference between adding and multiplying might initially seem to be relatively small to you, but trust me: it’s not. For example, look at this chart. How to turn a penny into 5.4 million dollars. You can do it in 30 days simply by doubling that penny every day. So you start out on Day 1 with one penny. Then, if you double that on Day 2, it becomes two pennies. Then on Day 3, it’s four pennies. Then eight pennies. Then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Then you’ve got over a dollar on Day 8. And on Day 30, you end up with 5.4 million dollars. That’s the power of multiplication. 

So, hopefully, you’re starting to see why I’ve entitled this message “Making the Greatest Possible Impact.” This is why. This is how you can make the greatest possible impact with your life. And perhaps the best part is that you don’t have to be a rockstar Christian to do this. I’m not sure any of us in this church are rockstar Christians—and that’s okay. This is a method that’s designed not for exceptionally gifted Christians but for ordinary Christians like you and me. If we’ll simply make disciples who we then train to make more disciples who then train their disciples to make more disciples, the impact of that over time is staggering.  

And if you look at your bulletin, you’ll notice that we believe in this approach to disciple-making so much that we’ve intentionally included it very clearly in our church’s mission statement that we put on the front of the bulletin just about every week. It says that “we want to glorify God by helping people know Christ personally, grow to spiritual maturity, and”—what?  “Become disciple-makers themselves.” Hopefully you aspire to that. Wouldn’t it be amazing if, in 10 years, every single Christian in this room was actively engaging someone in a discipling relationship? That would be incredible! Think about the impact that we’d have for the Kingdom of God. 

And bringing things back to our main passage in Acts 16, I believe all of this was in Paul’s mind from day one. From the day he asked Timothy to accompany him, I think it’s safe to assume that he expected a lot more out of that discipling relationship than just one guy being discipled. He knew that he would train Timothy to disciple others, who would then disciple others, who would then disciple others. And hopefully that can be happening in this church as well. Hopefully we can have that ambition for our lives—for the glory of God. Let me remind you again that we have “Only one life 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last.” Think about that as you set your priorities and plan your schedule.

However, there is one last thing we have to consider. The very first step to making disciples is becoming a disciple yourself. You can’t give to others what you yourself haven’t received or impart to others something you yourself haven’t experienced. That means you may have gained a lot of wisdom about a lot of things over the course of your life, but if you haven’t encountered Jesus in a life-changing way and experienced his radical work of transformation in your heart, then you’re not ready to make disciples. What you need, this morning, is to come to a realization, first, that every single one if us has sinned against God and stands condemned before him because of our sin. We need a Savior. And that’s exactly what Jesus came to be. He entered this world as a human being, lived a perfectly sinless life, and died on the cross to pay for our sins. He endured the punishment we deserved—not just the physical pain of crucifixion but the full undiluted wrath of God the Father against sin. That’s what Jesus suffered on the cross. Then, after that, he rose from the dead so that we also can have hope for life beyond the grave. However, in order for us to experience that, the Bible says we have to turn away from our sins and put our trust in Jesus alone to save us. And it’s then, and only then, that we’re ready to start doing what we’ve been talking about morning—making disciples who make disciples.