• Know that the greatest hindrance to missions is a weak sending church and put major effort into establishing the church as the Pastoral Epistles direct.
  

• Understand the task of missions is to evangelize strategically, establish congregations by instructing disciples and forming them in the context of the local church, and entrusting them to faithful leaders who will replicate this process.
  

• Support the centrality of the local church in the role of commissioning and sending equipping leaders for church establishment and expansion in mission work.
  

• Identify faithful men who can be trusted with the kerygma and didache with the process of testing, training, and affirming their entrustment.
  

• See multiplication of churches as the form of expansion of the church and the Gospel rather than simply building bigger and bigger churches.
  

• Expect that the bulk of mission work, that the church partners with and supports, agrees and practices these principles. 
  

• Partners in missions should have proved themselves in their local church in character and competency.
  

                        -They should be recognized by their local church as elders if they are going to be engaged in appointing other                                     leaders over the church(es).

                       -They should see their primary allegiance and accountability to their local sending church rather than their mission                          board or organization.

                        -They should be committed to the establishment, growth, and expansion of local churches, and their role as a tool                          that is not indispensable in that process.

                        -They should be diligently working on passing on the baton to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

South Hope Community Church focuses on 5 essential principles that under-gird who we are and what we do:

1. The CORE of the Gospel is what is known as the kerygma (Romans 16:25). It is the announcement from God and through the prophets of a promise of a Savior from sin and death. It announces the story and facts of His life, His sacrificial death, His resurrection and ascension, as well as His return to judge the living and the dead. It is the facts of what God did in, to, and through his Son to restore rebel humanity to a right relationship with God. (Acts 10; 1 Corinthians 1:13-31)

2. The CONTENT of the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17) is the invisible and spiritual work of God behind the scenes that the historical facts of the kerygma actually accomplished. God treated His Son as though He were a sinner, in order to treat sinners as though they were righteous. He does this when by grace through faith they have repented and believed the kerygma. The NT word euangelion, “good news,” when referencing the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, is the good news that the sinner who believes is counted as justified and righteous. The content of the Gospel explains what the cross achieves in the purpose of God; i.e. forgiveness, righteousness, union with Christ, adoption and redemption etc. (Romans, Galatians). 

3. The CONDUCT of the Gospel (Romans 12:1-2), the teaching known as the “didache,” is what every believer is expected to learn and live out in their personal walk before God, their families, the larger family of families, the Church, and the watching world. It includes living out gospel teaching in the midst of the world through sound doctrine (Titus 2:1), good occupations, and good deeds. The Household order of the Church and the family is central to the propagation of the kerygma, euangelion, and didache.

4. The CONTEXT of the Gospel: The local Church is the ordained context as a family of families of the establishing process of believers. Ephesians 3:8-11 shows the eternal purpose of God of structuring a unique people in Christ who would show His wisdom to the principalities and powers in the heavenlies. Believing Jew and Gentile become one new man in Christ, living according to the kerygma, euangelion, and didache as a well-ordered community as God’s people display God's glory (1 Peter 2:9-12). Christ's church benefits from strong families and strong families make a strong church. A strong church is a witness for the progress of the gospel (Phil. 1:27).

5. The COMMISSION of the Gospel was given to the Apostles to plant believing communities throughout the world. Making disciples (Mathew 28, Luke 24) to multiply Gospel communities is the task of the church. To evangelize strategically, establish churches, and entrust well-trained leaders is the cycle that Luke records in Acts as the model to be used for the sake of the Great Commission. Developing leaders who are prepared in skill, character, and Biblical theology, is vital to the furtherance of the gospel.

Paul's last letter before he was martyred is coming to an end in our Sunday series, but by God's grace the message will live in our lives as we make important what God makes important and live for what lasts. 


William Hendriksen summarizes the last chapter of the letter with the theme: 

"The Apostle Paul Tells Timothy What To Do In The Interest Of Sound Doctrine


Preach It                          'I charge you'

4:1-8     In season, out of season, for apostasy is coming.
                     Remain faithful in view of the fact that 'I am about to set sail.'

4:9-22   Items of personal information, requests, greetings."

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Hendriksen's synthesis of chapter four is helpful:

"Timothy must preach the sound doctrine. This is the final, most solemn charge which the apostle issues as he directs the assistant's attention to God and to Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in whose presence the charge is issued and received. Thus he places Timothy under oath to comply with the charge. If Timothy obeys, he will share in (and if he disobeys he will miss) the glory of Christ's Epiphany and Reign.

Timothy, then,must be a herald. He must forcefully and faithfully proclaim the divinely authorized message of salvation. Welcome or not welcome, he must ever be on hand with his good news. In this connection, he must reprove, rebuke, and admonish, doing all this with utmost longsuffering and painstaking teaching-activity. Let him bear in mind that the season will arrive--every age has such a season, but these seasons grow progressively worse--when men will not tolerate the sound doctrine. To be sure, they will still want to have teachers; in fact, 'heaps of them." But these teachers will be the kind that suit the fancies of men whose ears itch to hear interesting stories instead of the truth. Let Timothy then be sober, willing to suffer hardship, while he discharges to the full his evangelistic ministry. Let him do this all the more in view of the fact that Paul, who has fought the grand fight, has finished the race, and has kept the faith, is about to depart to the shores of eternity, in order that he may receive the wreath which he can justly claim as his own, and which the Lord, the righteous Judge will award to him on the day of judgment, and not to him alone but to all those who have been looking forward with love and longing to the moment of their Lord's appearing, his brilliant second coming."

This Sunday we finish the topical series on several marks of healthy churches with a study on leading one another and healthy church leadership. If the church’s ultimate task is to display God’s glory, then the channels that He uses are the prayerful obedience of His Word manifested in expository preaching, biblical theology, the glorious gospel, genuine conversion,  faithful evangelism, meaningful membership, loving discipline, discipleship together, and shepherding leadership. We’ve studied what God says about each of these topics besides the last one and Lord-willing have sorted out from the biblical data how God intends for the church to be built up into Christ.

The next book of the Bible we’ll study together is 2 Timothy. This is Paul’s last will and testament to his disciple Timothy. It is the last recorded epistle the Holy Spirit left us of Paul’s before Paul was executed by Nero and it urges Timothy to finish well as one entrusted with the rich treasure of the Gospel.

I’d encourage you to read its four short chapters as many times as you possibly can to let its message of being entrusted with the Gospel penetrate your soul. Pasted below is the outline of the book from Dr. Ray Van Neste.

Opening (1:1–2)

Exhortation to Endurance for the Gospel (1:3–2:13)

Thanksgiving for Timothy’s sincere faith (1:3–5)

A call to bold endurance in ministry, part 1 (1:6–14)

Examples, positive and negative (1:15–18)

A call to bold endurance in ministry, part 2 (2:1–13)

Dealing with False Teachers (2:14–3:9)

Timothy in contrast to the false teachers (2:14–26)

Description of the false teachers (3:1–9)

Exhortation to Timothy in Contrast to False Teachers (3:10–4:8)

Call to hold fast to Scripture and Paul’s example (3:10–17)

The ultimate charge (4:1–8)

Conclusion (4:9–22)