We are going to look at a short passage of scripture tonight. Just a few verses really. Let's read verses 1-13.

"Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek. And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily. Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis; And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither."

There are two main things that happen in these verses:

• Paul is paired up with one of his main helpers and his protege - Timothy
• They move their mission into Europe.

Honestly, there isn't a huge amount to go on in these verses. Many of the commentaries I read didn't have much of anything to say about them. One guy who I read who usually writes like a book on every chapter in Acts just folds this into another message.

Despite that - I think there are three lessons we can learn about doing God's work in this passage - they have to do with the personnel of God's work, the priorities of God's work, and the plan of God's work.

Let's pray and we'll jump in.

The first lesson I think we can learn here is about

1. The Personnel of God's Work.

The very first thing that we see Paul doing here is taking on a new member in their team.

You could almost get the impression from the end of chapter 15 - the John Mark episode - that Paul wasn't interested in working with other people. But that's not true at all. I think we see that Paul was always bringing people along and getting people to help him in the work God had called him to do.

Here, Paul sees this young Timothy, who at this point may have been as young as 16, and Paul sees this the potential in Timothy and signs him up to be his helper.

---

Let's take a quick look at Timothy. Hold your finger here and let's look at several scriptures about him:

Let's look first at 2 Timothy 1:5

"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands"

One of the things that stands out about Timothy is that he was a person who had pure faith. "Unfeigned faith" as Paul puts it. Another thing about him is that he knew the scriptures.

Let's look at another passage. Turn to 1 Cor. 14:17:

"For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church."

So he was also someone who Paul considered a son, and he was faithful in the Lord.

Back in our text we get a few more details about Timothy:

"Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium."

So...

• Even though He's a young person - he has a sterling reputation among the Christians in the area.
• His father is a Greek - So Timothy is half jewish.

Later on in Timothy's life he would be Paul's most trusted lieutenant and ultimately he ended up serving as the pastor of the church in Ephesus.

We also learn from the book of Timothy that Timothy was a little bit fearful, was probably self-conscious about how young he was, and had some minor health problems.

So that's Timothy.

---

Now, what does this teach us about the Personnel of God's work?

Two things I think we can learn:

The first is...

A. It takes a team.

Paul realized that God's work was way to big for him to do by himself, he was going to have to have some help. He was going to have to build a team.

That team included himself, Silas, Timothy, Titus, Luke and a bunch of other people: Aquilla and Priscella, Demas, Artemas, Tychicus, Appolos, Zenas and more.

John C. Maxwell - the pastor/leadership guru is famous for saying:

"Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.

Paul gets all of the credit. He's the name attached to it. But Paul was just the leader - he had a great team of people behind him helping him. They were all striving together towards the work God had called them to do.

Sometimes we think about famous people and their accomplishments all wrong. Steve Jobs didn't create the iPhone - Steve Jobs led a team of hundreds of people who gave us the iPhone. LeBron James didn't win the championship this year - LeBron James and a team did. Thomas Jefferson didn't give us the declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Richard Henry Lee co-wrote it, and then the continental congress heavily edited it.

Look, if our church is going to go anywhere - if we are going to accomplish any of our dreams, it's going to take teamwork. If we are limited to what I can do or what someone else can do - we won't do much.

And another thing - it really takes a team that cares more about sharing the work than sharing the glory. Harry Truman is quoted as saying:

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

God's work should be done for God's glory. He deserves the praise and the credit. Whenever you get to thinking - "I do more around here than so and so." You are on shaky ground.

This brings up the second lesson about the personnel of God's work. Where does the team come from? Where did Paul get Timothies and Tituses and Lukes?

The second lesson is:

B. It takes training.

Hold your finger here again and turn to 2 Timothy 2:2

"And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."

Timothy didn't start his journey with Paul a leader who was ready to take over the church at Ephesus - he had to learn a lot first, and he learned it on the job at the side of Paul.

Ephesians 4:11-12 says:

"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:"

A lot of people think that it is the job of the pastors and the "Full time Christian workers" to do the work of the ministry - but that's not the case. Our job is to perfect the saints so that you can do the work of the ministry. Our job is primarily training.

When you go to the Doctor, you probably appreciate the fact that they spend so much time in training. Years and years of med-school plus residencies plus lots of ongoing training. You understand that that is so important.

When you think of great preachers from the 1800s there are two names that always come to people's minds: Charles Spurgeon in London and D.L. Moody in America. Do you know that probably the biggest legacy that either of those men left was not the books they wrote or the sermons they preached - it was the people they trained to do the work of the ministry.

That makes a lot of sense. But think about this - the greatest preacher who ever lived was Jesus and the PRIMARY thing that Jesus did on this earth wasn't miracles or even preaching, it was training.

Listen folks, time spent sharpening the axe isn't wasted time. A call to do anything for God is a call to prepare and a call to be constantly learning.

So that's what this passage teaches us about the personnel of the Lord's work, the second thing I want you to see is:

2. The priority of the Lord's work.

Look again at verse 3:

"Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek"

There are two amazing things that this verse teaches us that are really easy to miss:

First, did you catch the phrase at the beginning "Him would Paul have to go forth with him"? Remember how old Timothy is? At the oldest, he's 25 years old here. More likely he's still a teenager. A teenager.

What makes it even more interesting is that this passage seems to teach that Timothy's dad was either dead or out of the picture. So here you have Timothy and he's just a teenager and he's about to leave his mother and grandmother and go out where? We don't know. Paul doesn't even know.

Remember - no email. No facetime. No cell phones. Not even phone books.

This teaches us an important lesson:

God's call should take priority over family ties.

Now, let me be clear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that being a Christian who feels like God is calling you to his work means you can ignore or mistreat your family. I'm not saying that it's ok for a dad who is a pastor to be a bad dad for the Lord's sake.

What I am saying is that sometimes God calls us to leave our families.

I can talk a little bit about this: I don't talk about this often, but the hardest part of being a pastor for me is being very far away from my family. I have a very close family - not just my brothers and nieces and nephews. But aunts and uncles and cousins and living grandparents. It's tough. When we go for a trip home and it's time to leave I want to blaze out of there not because I'm ready to go but because it's really tough to leave.

But, I believe I followed God here and that takes priority.

You've all heard of Hudson Taylor. Do you know that Hudson Taylor went on a trip through the US to get missionaries and he told people at every stop and every church: I don't want your money - I want your sons and daughters. I want you to meet me at such and such a place in California at such and such a time and when you meet me there - pack everything you have in a coffin, because you are likely never coming home.

That's tough. But sometimes that's what it costs to follow God and do His work.

The second thing we see in this about the priority of the Lord's work is:

God's call should take priority over pride.

Back in verse 3 notice that it says:

and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters

Wait a second?! Hold the phone! What?

Remember last Sunday? (Don't worry - I barely do.) Paul just got finished at the Jerusalem counsil where he was passionately arguing against asking new Christians to get circumcised. Yet here, the first thing Paul has Timothy do is get circumcised.

I'm not going into the details but this isn't a small ask. This is a big deal.

So why did Paul do it? It wasn't about salvation - Timothy was obviously saved already? It was about ministry.

Let me ask you something - would there be anything wrong with Timothy not getting circumcised? No. Not a thing. Paul established that in chapter 15 and in many places in his writings. So why have Timothy circumcised?

The answer is simple - because it would help Timothy in his ministry. He did it for others.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 9 and let's look at verses 19-23:

"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you."

I hear folks sometimes and they say things like "Where in the Bible does it say that I have to ..." and "There is nothing wrong with..." and do you know what? A lot of the times, they are right. They are right. Absolutely.

But do you know, even if they are right, we aren't called to live on the plane of right and wrong - that's the law. We are called to live on the plane of grace. We live by the law of grace and that is a much higher standard.

Sometimes grace says "I know there is absolutely nothing wrong with this - but I'm going to abstain from it anyways because I want to be able to win these people."

Here's the main point though - it's not about us being right, it's not about pride. Timothy didn't come under the knife out of pride - he did it out of love. Take a look at your standards that other people might question - do you do it out of pride? Is it something you do so you can pat yourself on the back and say "I'm glad I'm not like so and so." You very well may be doing the right thing - but you are doing it for the wrong reason.

Let me quickly move on to...

3. The plan of God's Work:

Back in our text, the Apostle Paul get's Timothy and begins to go around Asia Minor - modern day Turkey - visiting churches. That's the plan. But that's not what happens.

God keeps shutting doors. God won't let them have peace about it. Look at verses 6-7:

"Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not."

Then verse 9 says:

"And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us."

Here is the lesson:

God's work requires the leadership of God's Spirit