Purpose Under Pressure

We are formed for a purpose. But what does it look like to actually walk in that purpose when everything around you is pushing back? Paul's first letter to Timothy gives us a window into how God forms us for a purpose and keeps us aligned to it.

The story behind the letter

Paul first met Timothy in Lystra, a small Roman colony in the region of Lycaonia, in what is now south-central Turkey, about 20 miles from the modern city of Konya. It was a country town, probably no more than a few thousand people, where locals still spoke their own Lycaonian dialect. It was hardly the place you'd expect to find the next generation of leadership.

On his first missionary journey, around AD 47 or 48, Paul was stoned in Lystra, dragged outside the city and left for dead. But when the disciples gathered around him, he got up and walked right back into town. In a place that size, everyone would have known. It would have been the talk of the whole city. Timothy was very likely converted during that visit, and he didn't just hear about the stoning. He grew up in its aftermath.

Years later, in his final letter, Paul reminded him: "You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra" (2 Timothy 3:10-11, ESV). That phrase "my aim in life" translates a Greek word that means purpose. Paul put his purpose right beside his sufferings. Timothy's first picture of purpose was a man getting back up under opposition.

About two or three years later, around AD 49 or 50, Paul returned to Lystra carrying a fresh wound. He had just parted ways with Barnabas, the man who first believed in him. Barnabas was probably a bit older and more established in the church. When the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of Paul, Barnabas brought him in and vouched for him. When Paul was sitting in obscurity in Tarsus, Barnabas went looking for him and brought him into the work at Antioch. But over John Mark, they had such a sharp disagreement that they went separate ways. So Paul came back to Lystra, now traveling with Silas, having just lost his own mentor, and in that very place he found a son. The man who had been sponsored became the sponsor.

Timothy had a Jewish mother, Eunice, and a Greek father, and his grandmother Lois passed a sincere faith down to him. The believers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, so Paul brought him onto the team. Soon after, Luke joined them at Troas, and together they crossed into Macedonia.

For the next fifteen years, Timothy was Paul's traveling companion and spiritual son. He went through Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea and Corinth. He was with Paul during his three years in Ephesus, when magic books were burned and the word of the Lord grew mightily. He was sent into hard places to strengthen struggling churches, and his name stands beside Paul's in six letters.

Around AD 57, Paul gathered the Ephesian elders at Miletus and warned them that men would rise up from among them, speaking perverse things. Now, around AD 62 to 64, Paul is in his early sixties, released from his first Roman imprisonment and writing from Macedonia. Timothy is probably in his thirties, still young for a leader, and Paul has left him in Ephesus. It's a wealthy, idol-filled city, home to the temple of Artemis, and the warning has come true: teachers inside the church are chasing myths, genealogies and empty arguments about the law.

So Paul writes with a purpose: to give Timothy courage to face the opposition, to remind him of the larger story of God's mercy he belongs to, and to call him back to his own individual calling.

Read 1 Timothy 1

With that story in mind, take a moment and read First Timothy chapter 1. Read it the way Timothy would have, as a young leader in a hard place, opening a letter from the man he watched get back up in Lystra.

If you know this chapter well, feel free to skip ahead to the three anchors below.

1. Clarify the opposition, internal and external

We get a glimpse of the obstacles Timothy may have faced from the way Paul writes to him in First and Second Timothy. You can tell a lot about a person by what their spiritual father feels he needs to say to them.

Some of Timothy's obstacles were external. There were false teachers inside the church (1 Timothy 1:3-7). There were people who looked down on him: "Let no one despise you for your youth" (1 Timothy 4:12, ESV). And there was a body that wasn't cooperating: "use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments" (1 Timothy 5:23, ESV).

Some were internal. Fear and timidity: "God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control" (2 Timothy 1:7, ESV). Anxiety and grief: Paul remembers his tears (2 Timothy 1:4). Distraction: "Practice these things, immerse yourself in them" (1 Timothy 4:15, ESV). And the pull of pleasure: "flee youthful passions" (2 Timothy 2:22, ESV), "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" (1 Timothy 6:10, ESV), and the sad note that "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me" (2 Timothy 4:10, ESV).

Maybe you recognize your own. You don't have enough finances. You don't have the education you think you're supposed to have. You're carrying health issues or financial pressure. Or inside, it's fear, anxiety, distraction, chasing comfort, or a sense that you're stuck with no agency to change anything.

You can't push through what you won't look at. Naming it takes away its power to ambush you. But Paul doesn't leave Timothy staring at the problem.

2. Anchor to the larger story you're a part of

Paul pulls back the curtain on his own life: "Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy." Then he says his story was meant to be "an example to those who were to believe" (1 Timothy 1:13-16, ESV).

Timothy had watched that story firsthand, in Lystra and over fifteen years of traveling with Paul. By now he could probably tell Paul's testimony as well as Paul could. So Paul isn't reminding him of the details. He's telling him what to anchor to. In the face of opposition, he points Timothy back to the mercy that started it all.

The larger story can take many forms:

• The faith of spiritual mothers and fathers. Timothy had Lois, Eunice and Paul. Who carried faith before you?
• The journey of your own faith. Where God found you, and what he has already brought you through.
• The bigger picture of your life story. This season is one chapter, not the whole book.
• The testimony of Scripture. "From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15, ESV).
• The gospel itself. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15, ESV). Every one of our stories is anchored there.

We don't just remember the larger story. We anchor to it.

3. Focus on the assignment at hand

The larger story anchors you, but inside it there's a specific assignment for right now. For Timothy, it was clear: stay in Ephesus and stand against false teaching. Paul ties that assignment to "the prophecies previously made about you" (1 Timothy 1:18, ESV), likely spoken when the elders laid hands on him (1 Timothy 4:14). It was a rhema word, a now word, personal to Timothy and for that season. And by it, he was to "wage the good warfare."

When things get hard, there's a temptation for all of us to escape. Some of us look past the challenges of the present too soon and live in fantasy: someday it'll be different. Others look back at past victories and live in nostalgia: remember when God moved. Both are a kind of escapism.

Paul doesn't send Timothy into the future or back to the glory days. He tells him to stay and fight the good fight right where he is. Purpose isn't lived someday or back then. It's lived in faithful, diligent obedience to the assignment in front of you today.

Reflect

• What opposition, internal or external, do you need to name honestly this week?
• What larger story are you anchored to?
• What is the assignment in front of you right now?

Want to go deeper? Look for the five-day YouVersion plan Purpose Under Pressure, and watch the full Formed for a Purpose series on YouTube.