438. That’s how many followers I have on Instagram. 22 is the number of subscribers I have on this blog. 12 is how many average plays each episode of my podcast gets. With those kind of numbers, it’s probably no shock to you that at the beginning of this year I considered donating 100% of my salary to charity and simply living off the income I generate online.
The reason you’re laughing right now is because you know how unimpressive those numbers are, so it’s quite laughable to think those numbers represent anything remotely resembling popularity. But it illustrates what we tend to accept as general truth today, which is, if something or someone is popular, that makes them a success. We live at a time when something going viral can lead to celebrity success or product or branding success seemingly overnight. What does that reinforce? Popularity proves that something is successful. If a lot of people like it and everyone has to have it, well, isn’t that success? If it leads to more exposure for the celebrity or generates skyrocketing revenue for shareholders, isn’t that success?
In my previous sermon post, I mentioned that these two messages would serve as compliments to each other. They are both warnings against determining the success of the Word on the basis of its results. Previously, when we saw Jesus just about corralled off a cliff as a result of how unpopular his message was, the point was made that Rejection is Not Proof of Failure. That is, rejection – the deplorable behavior in response to Jesus’ preaching – did not and does not indicate that the Word is a failure or ineffective. The Word always works. The warning this time, though, may be an even more challenging truth for us to accept in our culture: we may have to be even more on guard against the other extreme of allowing popularity to serve as proof of the Word’s success.
If we’re going to focus on success this, it seems a worthwhile exercise for us to step back a moment and check our definition of success. Are you personally successful? What standard of measurement would you use to answer that question? Is it a matter of income – how much you make? What about how impressive sounding your job is? Does a trophy spouse or a large house equal success? Kids that excel academically or athletically? Is it who you know, rubbing elbows with the heavy hitters and name-dropping left and right? What standard or expectation needs to be met for you to consider yourself personally successful?
How would we answer the same question if we asked it of our churches? What standard of measurement would you use to answer that question? Sunday morning attendance? If so, by total number each Sunday or by percentage of members who worship weekly? Compared to other churches our size across the country or just in CA? Compared to ten years, twenty-five, or forty-five years ago? What did we average last year? 99. If popularity is gauged by numbers and numbers equal success, then we’re failing – quite miserably at that! In forty-five years the best we can do is 8 fewer people in church on average each week (the worship average forty-five years ago was 107)???
But if we only go back to COVID, our attendance since then has actually increased steadily each year… Or if we look at this or that or the other thing, well, eventually we’ll find something we can count as successful. Offering totals? Building projects? Awareness in the community? What standard or expectation needs to be met for you to consider our church successful?
Realize something about our measurements of success: it’s natural for us to find them where we want to look when we’re the ones defining success. But that isn’t terribly helpful, is it? There must be some objective metric for success. Hmmm… I wonder where we could ever hope to find such an indicator of success. Call me crazy, but let’s try the Bible.
As Paul wrote to Timothy, do you suppose he was providing guidance for Timothy on how to kill his church? Was Paul trying to sabotage Timothy’s ministry so that it would fail miserably? Of course not! Paul was giving advice and encouragement to help him succeed in ministry and life.
Oh, and if you wish to analyze the numbers Paul highlights in his recipe for success, you’ll only come across one mention of numbers – and it isn’t positive. The only time Paul references numbers is the negative impact that large numbers of false teachers will have in fleecing people by telling them “what their itching ears want to hear” (4:3).
So if Paul doesn’t point to numbers to encourage Timothy toward a successful ministry, what gets his attention? It may be best summarized in verse two: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
This encouragement is the essence of everything that Timothy should be busy with in his life and ministry, given the gravity of what preceded. Paul set a very serious tone by calling God as his witness! “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” (4:1). This verse builds up and crescendos in such a way that we’re hanging on Paul’s words. What is it? What is the charge? What is such a big deal to God?
That we preach his Word.
Because that is what God uses to do his work. He has given us no other charge as his church and his people, and no other assurance that he works through any other means than his Word. There is no, “the Word and…” – just the Word! Paul was communicating to Timothy that preaching the Word was not just the most important thing on a list of many other responsibilities, but rather that it’s the only thing; there really is nothing else at all than preaching the Word!
So if we want success, if we want to be and do what God is interested in us being and doing, then he must be the one accomplishing that in and through us. And he does it in only one way: through his Word.
Earlier I wrote about defining success in your personal life and defining success as a church. But I fear such a distinction may be unhelpful, because it leads us to think of them as separate things: there is my church life over here and there is my personal life over there.
But that’s a false distinction, because there isn’t one or the other, but simply the believer’s life. When we read the words of Paul to Timothy, Paul doesn’t make some artificial distinction between what happens on Sundays versus the rest of the week, or what happens at church versus everywhere else.
No, everything Paul is writing to Timothy has to do with his whole life, and more specifically, the role of the Bible in it. He doesn’t refer to what Timothy does during his office hours in his study at church and then what he does later on when he’s at home. He simply points out how the Word is to work in his whole life, including his personal life.
When we take a good hard look at the Word’s popularity in our own lives, an honest look will lead us to appreciate how off the mark this idea is that popularity is proof of success. If popularity is the criteria for success, how popular is the Word when compared to the time we give to other interests in our life? Does the Word look as popular as, say, sports, whether watching, playing, or shuttling kids around? How about your favorite streaming service? Reading? Hobbies? And that’s all outside of your job, which of course nobody brings home with them these days. How successful does the Word look if based on its popularity in our own homes? Thank goodness popularity is not proof of success, even in our own homes!
Nevertheless, just as Paul’s encouragement to Timothy with the Word was not just a church thing, but a whole life thing, that same encouragement holds for us, too. Do you realize that the work of the Word in the church is synonymous with the work of the Word in your whole life? In other words, the success of the church depends on the success of the Word in each of our lives. The church that is successful is the one made up of people letting the Word dwell in them richly all the time.
The work of the church is your light shining in the workplace. The work of the church is Bible stories at bedtime with kids. The work of the church is husband and wife focusing together on Jesus in their marriage. The work of the church is the neighbor you point to Jesus when she’s struggling. The work of the church is you promoting the blessings of our elementary school to other families with little ones.
It’s helpful that Paul points out the ways we apply the Word and put it to work in our lives. We spend the time reading and studying it so that we can be prepared, so that we can correct, rebuke, and encourage one another. So that we can be trained in righteousness. So that we – and many others along with us! – can be wise for salvation, the most important thing of all! And flowing from that certainty of salvation, we apply the Word so that we can be equipped for every good work.
But these blessings aren’t only for your benefit; God intends the way he shapes you with his Word to be a blessing to others, too. After all, when Paul brings about the conclusion of the Word’s work, what is it? “So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (v.17). And who do you suppose is blessed and served by good works? My neighbor.
As we look around in the world today, do we see any need for our good works to make a difference? Absolutely! How can we rely on the world to carry out good works when the world has redefined what “good” is? Isaiah issued a warning regarding those who don’t know what good is. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is. 5:20).
The world doesn’t know what good is. We do. But if we aren’t allowing the Word to work in us to accomplish that good, then what right do we really have to sit back and whine about how bad everything in the world is? Change it! Do good! Let the Word work good in you for the good of the world!
The same author of these verses to Timothy is the one who wrote to the believers in Rome, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). The Word will equip every servant of God thoroughly for every good work. Will you let it?
When it comes to God’s work, popularity doesn’t indicate success. Neither do numbers.
What determines success is the Word, when we put it to work. If you do – when you do – then you will know what success is.