What Does Success Look Like in God’s Kingdom?
Ronaldo and Messi, Simone and Serena, Scheffler, McIlroy, and Woods you know names like these because they are among the most successful athletes in the world. Sheeran and Swift, Eilish and Ariana, Combs and Stapleton some of the most popular singers.
Denzel, the Rock, Cruise, Johansson and Sweeney and Aniston wildly successful movie stars.
Ticket sales and jersey sales, most-streamed songs and radio plays, movies that tear you away from Netflix and your couch and get you into a theater…these are some of the things that announce that a person is popular and successful.
But What Does Success Look Like in God’s Kingdom? I can tell you that it’s not the same kind of stuff! God has an entirely different way of judging success—and you and I should too.
Faithfulness to God’s Word is Success
The Apostle Paul was writing to a young man named Timothy who was a bit like you and a bit like me. Like him, you are an important person to God and an important part of his kingdom. Like him, I am that also and I am a pastor like he was As we look over Timothy’s shoulder and read this letter too, truths of the highest importance pop off the page, things worthy of learning and remembering. Really, things we have to know both for ourselves and for others as we live for God in his kingdom
Timothy was blessed in a way that many of you were. He was raised to know God from the time he was a baby. Paul had already mentioned Eunice, his mom, and Lois, his grandmother at the beginning of this letter. Timothy would have thought of them when he read, As for you, continue in the things you have learned and about which you have become convinced. You know from whom you learned them and that from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
In God’s eyes, Lois and Eunice were successful. We don’t know anything more about them and we don’t need to. That they raised Timothy from the time he was a baby to know his God and Savior that was faithfulness to God and his Word, which is success in the kingdom of God. The only “popular people lists” those ladies end up on are ones that you and I might see within the kingdom of God. The world hardly notices people like that. No one sells posters of parents who raise Christian children. But you know who notices.
I was talking with a college student this week about how hard it is to know what’s true and what’s not. Who and what can you trust? Are the images you see real or AI? Is the “breaking news” on X actually true? Or the story on Facebook? Is she really your friend
or does she have other motives? One professor says this thing is true, but another disagrees. The salesperson at Home Depot tells you to stay away from this brand of appliances. The guy at Lowe’s tells you that same one gets great reviews. Can you even trust what a friend whispers in your ear? This is a confusing world. It’s hard to know what is true and right and even more so as things keep changing.
But for a Christian, there are some rock-solid, trustworthy things that you can count on—things that will never change. That’s because they are truths that God declares in the Scriptures. Timothy had learned them from his mom and grandma, he had learned from Paul too. Now Paul reminds him that he needs to continue to believe by remaining in that Word of God. And here’s why: The Holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
The ultimate success is to have the salvation Christ Jesus obtained for you with his successful payment for sins on the cross and his victory over the grave. Clearly, this was his work, not ours, but Jesus gives us the win that is the greatest, yet not popular with the world. Just the opposite in fact.
We don’t always value this success either though, even though we have it. We act like it’s not enough sometimes. We want more. We want the earthly things. We chase the “likes” on social media and to be liked in person. We want the approval of others and the praise of people. Those things seem like success because the world tells us they are and that sinful side of us tells us that too. We might even trade what God says is success and lasts for eternity for some cheap knock-off that isn’t going to last.
Any popularity we gain, any envy our words and actions prompt from others, won’t last beyond this world—it may not even last our lifetime. It could fade in a week! But salvation through faith in Christ Jesus won’t. It is for this life and for eternity. God forgive us for not recognizing this, for not remembering this, for not living like this is the most important thing.
Success is found in faithfully following the God-breathed words of Scripture that tell us the unchanging truth about Jesus and the glories of God and what he wants to see in our beliefs and behaviors. Paul tells us the purposes for which we use it: for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that we become this complete person who is able to please God with our lives. As that Word of God is applied to us, we are called out when we do something wrong in God’s eyes, we are corrected when we have a wrong belief, and we are trained to know and live for God.
Sticking with God’s Word, with the gospel of salvation in Jesus, applying that Word to our lives of faith—that is a success that the world cannot appreciate and understand. I don’t know what you were doing on January 10th, but it was a national day that you may have inadvertently celebrated. People who research such things tell us that by the second Friday of the new year, most people discontinue their New Year’s resolutions. Quitter’s Day, they call it. Most are not successful with their resolve to go forward with a new mindset and better living.
We cannot have that when it comes to our faith. God pushes you to keep going, to not quit, to continue in what you have learned because his Word tells you all the important and vital things for this life and for eternity. It makes you wise for salvation. Having that is a success that the world cannot offer you.
Faithful in Sharing God’s Word is Success
But this isn’t all about us just as it wasn’t all about Timothy when Paul wrote to him As people who are part of God’s kingdom, we want what God wants. We want others to know a success that is different than what the world prizes. God tells us how to do that. Yes, these words were written to a pastor telling him the importance of sticking to God’s Word and preaching it, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t for you. Timothy was called to do these things publicly for the Church, but these are also directives that God gives to all of us.
Don’t let the word preach throw you off. It means to proclaim or to announce. Timothy was called to preach or proclaim God’s Word to groups of believers, but you are also called to proclaim the truth of God’s Word so that others can come to know Christ.
You likely won’t share what God says from a pulpit like your pastors do, but you don’t need to. You know people who are living apart from God and people who have wrong ideas about God. You know people who are clueless when it comes to the Bible. That’s not meant to be derogatory, they simply don’t know. But they do know you. And that seems like a perfect match, don’t you think?! I’m pushing you to think about those people and to say something to them.
When this kind of thing is brought to our attention, you know what’s common? Excuses.
I don’t know enough to talk with them. I’m embarrassed to bring it up. It’s not the right time.
I don’t want to ruin our relationship.
I don’t want to push them away from God and church.
Look, the simplest way to put this is, that’s our sinful nature talking. It is not faithfulness to God or his Word. You know what you have learned and continued in, just like Timothy. You know enough to share the gospel. You know what is right and wrong. What often makes a person popular and well-liked is to avoid talking about these kinds of things. But is that what you’re living for? Is that why you have such a hard time saying something—popularity in this world? Are you collecting friends as if that’s the measure of success?
God forgive us for this too. We act like our relationship with a person is more important than that person’s relationship with God. And timing? We’re worried about whether it’s the right time? How would we feel if that person who didn’t know Christ, and who we wouldn’t talk to about the Savior, died tomorrow? Or push someone away from God and church? Isn’t that where they are already?! This and other reasons are why Timothy got this direction: Preach the word. Be ready whether it is convenient or not. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, with all patience and teaching.
Success is found in the faithful proclaiming of God’s Word that is able to make people wise for salvation. And it is possible that people you talk to will turn to God. Don’t doubt that; it’s literally how God does it using us to share Jesus!
It may be tempting to think that the Bible is just a book, an inactive thing, that the words of Scripture printed in your worship folder are just copier toner on paper. But they’re much more than that! They are the avenue through which the HS creates and strengthens faith. This is why you continue in it That’s why you proclaim it!
When you are faithful in sharing God’s Word with others and your pastors are too, the Holy Spirit definitely works on our own hearts and in the lives of others who come to know their Savior. But sometimes it doesn’t seem like enough. Paul explains why that happens. Many people belong to the itchy ears club they would rather listen to people who tell them what they want to hear instead of being willing to listen to the actual words of God. And there are the myth-followers, those who claim to be spiritual, but trust in things that have nothing to do with God.
Those who tell people what they want to hear may gather a lot of attention and followers and are popular in a worldly sense but don’t confuse that with godly success. Pastors can stress about the size of the church and whether we are growing. We—and you too—might chase after gimmicky things or avoid difficult teachings of the Bible so that more people will come…and stay.
You might think things like, “If only our pastors were more like this or if they would do that, then there would be fewer empty seats in church. ” Or “That other church has this program and that is why they are so successful.” We’re tricked into thinking that numbers must mean that a church is doing and saying the right things. We can lose our heads for a bit thinking that popularity must mean success in God’s kingdom, when success is really being faithful in sharing God’s Word and trusting the Holy Spirit to work in his time and in his way.
A day like today is good for reminding us that whether the world notices you for anything or not, you are successful if you are faithful to God and his Word. Whether the world looks at our church as popular or not, we are successful if we faithfully share God’s Word. This is What Success Looks Like in God’s Kingdom. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.