Faithful People - Wednesday Evening

From Dennis:
It was hot today, over a hundred degrees. We had an easy day, time to get caught up on some emails. In the evening we were at Grace Bible Church for the Women's Day of our conference. Elizabeth was the Bible speaker and Pastor Peter stood beside her and translated into Akan. Liz spoke on 2 Timothy 2:2 -- "The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful people who will be able to teach others also."

She learned to say "faithful people" in akan -- "nnipa anokwafo-oh." It looks easier than it is; Akan has some sounds that just don't exist in English. But the congregation loved hearing her speak Akan.

From Liz:
It is a hot, hot night here in Ghana. We’ve just returned from Women's Day at Grace Bible Church, where the women led the service. It was another great night of fellowship, praising the Lord together, and digging deeper into this message of the grace of God. I taught tonight from 2 Timothy 2:2, where Paul tells Timothy to commit the things he has heard from Paul to faithful people who will be able to teach others also.

We talked about how that word ‘people’ is a word that includes men and women—and that each of us who knows this grace message, who knows the unsearchable riches that are found in Christ, who has had this costly treasure committed to us, now has a responsibility to turn around and teach it to others, who will be able to do likewise. Many of us are eager hearers of the Word, and we gladly consume this message of grace, but too often we forget about the second half of that verse, the ‘able to teach others’ part. That’s the part that makes us a little uncomfortable.

We looked at that word ‘able’, and saw how it means ‘sufficient.’ People who are ‘sufficient’ to teach others also. Well, who is sufficient? Who is able?? Paul uses the same word in 2 Cor. 3:5, when he says, ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” Praise God that he is not looking for strong and self-confident people, but for people who are confident in what the Lord can do! It is not our power, but the power of God in us that will make this message known to our friends and our families, to this city and to this country.

As I was preparing this message, and even as I preached it tonight, I was also preaching it to myself. I am challenged by Paul’s words to Timothy, and pray that in my life, and in the lives of the women and men who heard these words tonight, when the day comes to give an account to the Lord for what we did with the grace that’s been committed to us, we’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”