A Disciple Impacts Others

Way back in the Roaring Twenties, in the city of Chicago, there lived a man named Eddie O’Hare. Artful Eddie, they called him. He was a slick, well-dressed Irishman—a lawyer by profession. But he operated on the wrong side of the law most of the time.

Artful Eddie was a crony of Al Capone, the notorious gangster. Among other things, he was in charge of Capone’s dog tracks, and he mastered the art of fixing races. He had money, status, and style. But one day, Eddie O’Hare decided to turn his back on all that. He turned himself in and became a government witness to inform on Al Capone and his activities.

That was an extremely dangerous thing to do. Everyone knows what happens to people who squeal on the Mob. And Artful Eddie was no different. Not long afterward, he was killed by two shotgun blasts.

Why did Eddie have such a change of heart? Why did he risk everything to clear his name? Well, he did it for his son Butch.

Eddie was sick of the crime and the corruption in which he lived. He had breathed the foul air of the underground long enough. He wanted better for his son. He wanted Butch to have a name that he could be proud of. That’s why Eddie decided to get out. And his decision cost him everything. But it was worth it.

When Butch O’Hare grew up, he was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy. He won his wings in World War 2 as a naval aviator. One dark, tropical night in the South Pacific, Butch shot down five Japanese bombers, saving the lives of hundreds of crewmen on the U.S.S. Lexington. For that feat, Butch won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

But even better, the name O’Hare was cleared. And more than cleared, it was remembered. Today, when people in Chicago say the name O’Hare, they don’t think of gangsters, crime, and corruption. They think of a heroic pilot who saved hundreds of lives by risking his own.

Think about that the next time you fly into the busiest airport in the world. You’re flying into an airport that’s named for the son of a gangster gone good.

Impact. Your life has an incredible impact on others. The question is not “Do I have an impact on people?”, but rather “What kind of an impact do I have?” Am I, through the power of my influence and example, moving people closer to God and to good, or further away?

When we talk about Christianity, we’re talking about a way of life that is better caught than taught. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the way you live your life speaks far more eloquently than any words you could ever say. In fact, what you are speaks so loud that the people around you often cannot hear what you say.

The Apostle Paul knew that. In 2 Timothy 3, he talked about some false teachers that were plaguing the church. They were very eloquent in their teaching; they had dazzling presentations, and persuasive arguments. But Paul said in verse 9 that sooner or later people would discover what they were really like. “Their folly will be clear to everyone.”

But in contrast to that, Paul says to Timothy in verse 10 “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, and sufferings.”

He’s saying “On the other hand, Timothy—unlike those charlatans who try to fool people with their words—you not only know my teaching, you know my life.”

The phrase that is translated “you know all about”, or in the KJV “you have fully known” is a single Greek word that is only used here and a couple of other places in the NT. It is a word that means “to follow closely” or “to study something at close quarters”.

It is a word that is used at the beginning of the book of Luke. When Dr. Luke wrote the account of Jesus’ life which became the third book of the NT, he said at the beginning of that book in chapter one verse three: “I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning” I have studied it closely; I have examined the facts firsthand.

So do you see what Paul is saying here to Timothy? He is saying “Not only do you know my teaching, Timothy. You also know my life. You have had a chance to see me up close and personal—to examine my life at first hand.”

He says “You know all about my…”

1. Purpose - my chief aim in life; my resolve, my commitment

2. Faith

3. Patience - Can I say this to my wife, or to my children: “You know all about my patience?”

4. Love

5. Endurance - how do I react when the going gets tough? Do I whine and complain?

6. Persecutions

7. Sufferings - how do I react when things go bad?

You reveal more of your character in failure than in success.

Once upon a time, there was a father and a son who enjoyed hunting. Every year, they would charter a bushplane to fly them into the remote mountains of Western Canada to hunt elk. Well, this particular year they came back to meet the plane in a little valley after a week of hunting. And they had bagged six elk.

The pilot said that the plane could safely take off with only four elk. But the father insisted “The plane we chartered last year was exactly like this one. The engine had the same horsepower. The weather was the same. And we had six elk last year.”

So reluctantly, the pilot gave in to the father’s arguments. They jammed the six elk into the cargo hold, climbed aboard, and attempted to take off. The overloaded plane staggered across the meadow, barely clearing the trees at the end, but it was just too heavy to fly. Finally, they crashed into a mountainside.

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. They stumbled out of the wreckage, and the son asked the father if he had any idea where they were. The father replied “I’m not sure, son, but I think we’re just a couple of miles from where we crashed last year.”

There are times when the people close to you are going to see you in the midst of failure. How you handle failure reveals the reality of your faith. Timothy saw Paul in the bad times as well as in the good. Look at verse 11.

Timothy lived in Lystra. That’s where he first met Paul, on Paul’s first missionary journey. When Paul came to Timothy’s region of the country, he preached in three cities. He had a tri-city evangelistic crusade. What were the results of that crusade?

In Antioch, he was kicked out of the city by the city council. In Iconium, he had to flee for his life because there was a contract out for him. And in Lystra—Timothy’s home town—they finally nailed him. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city and left him for dead. But God miraculously healed him and raised him up.

Timothy had seen all that. He saw Paul in the midst of failure. He saw how Paul reacted when things went bad.

And it’s important for us to realize that Christianity is as much about failure as it is about success. It’s as much about suffering as it is about success. Maybe more so. Paul says in verse 12 that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”. So don’t be afraid to let people know that things are not always coming up roses in your life.

The reason that Paul made such an impact on Timothy’s life was that he allowed Timothy to know him as more than just a preacher, more than just a spiritual leader, more than just an authority on the Bible. He let him into his life to know him as a man.

Timothy and Paul ate countless meals together. They talked together for hours as they walked along the road on their missionary journeys. They sat around the campfire together at night. Timothy didn’t just see Paul in a ministry context. He didn’t just know Paul from what he saw of him on Sunday mornings in the pulpit.

Timothy knew that Paul was walking his talk. Timothy knew that Jesus Christ was real to Paul. He knew that his faith in Christ was making a real difference in Paul’s life. And that made a tremendous impact on Timothy’s life.

That’s why Paul could say in verse 14 “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it.” Credibility leads to continuity.

In today’s world, which places such a high value on privacy and individualism, it’s very easy for us to wall off certain portions of our lives for no one else to see. This is particularly true of men.

Author Alan Loy McGinnis in his book “The Friendship Factor” states that only 10% of all men ever have any real friends—friends they are honest with, friends they lower the barriers with, friends they become accountable to. Researcher Michael McGill did a 10 year study of 5,000 individuals and concluded that “Modern men simply do not value friendship”.

Even though women seem to achieve more intimacy in friendships than men do, they, too, can carefully control what part of their lives they allow their friends to see and what part they keep hidden. And because of this tendency to compartmentalize and isolate, there is a very real danger that we can become artificial about our Christian faith.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of “plastic Christians” who present themselves as victorious, happy Christians on Sunday, but who live defeated, frustrated lives the rest of the week. But they keep up the pretense; they polish that veneer, because they are afraid to let people into their lives to see what they are really like.

That’s a very frustrating way to live. It’s a very tiring way to live. And it leaves a legacy of phoniness and hypocrisy with the people who are close enough to you to know what’s really happening in your life.

So the question is: How can I have a life-changing, positive impact for Jesus on the people around me? Three suggestions:

1. Be available to them.

Ask yourself this question: How, and where, and when do I allow people to see the real me? Am I on display only in formal, public, “official” contexts—like at work, or in highly structured social functions, or at church—where presumably I am on my best behavior?

Do I ever let people into my home—and I’m not talking about having formal dinner parties here. Do I ever let people see what I do in my “down-time”, when I relax? Do I ever go out of my way to include someone else in a project that I’m working on?

One of the reasons that Jesus had such a maximum impact on the disciples was that he was available to them. The Apostle John says, in 1 John 1, that Jesus was a man they had seen a lot of. They looked at him, they heard him teach, they had handled him, their hands had touched him. He wasn’t some kind of remote authority figure that they worshiped from afar. He was available to them.

Have you ever seen a cuckoo clock? It’s just an ordinary clock, except that on the hour, a little bird pops out, says “cuckoo”, and then disappears again. You won’t see him again for another hour.

If we want have impact in the lives of other people, we can’t be cuckoo-clock Christians—just appearing, saying our piece, and then disappearing again. We have to be available to people. We have to let them into our life.

Your non-Christian friend might put it this way:

I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day. I’d rather you would walk with me, than merely tell me the way.

2. Transparency

Is your house always neat and tidy? Are your children always well-behaved? Does your checkbook always balance? Do you always return your library books on time? Do you never raise your voice when you get angry?

I didn’t think so. But we all want to make people think that these things are true of us. Because we all shy away from being transparent and honest with each other.

Now when I talk about transparency, I’m not talking about sharing all your faults and weaknesses and struggles with just anyone who comes along. Even Jesus was somewhat selective about which of his disciples he shared his most intimate moments with. When he went into the Garden of Gethsemane, he left most of his disciples at the gate, but he took Peter, James, and John further into the garden with him.

So I’m not advocating that you let it all hang out with everyone you know. But it seems to me that we usually err more on the other side. That we go out of our way to conceal our faults and our struggles, our worries and our cares.

If we are going to help non-Christians come to Christ, and new Christians to grow in Him, we’re going to have to take off the masks and let them know that we are just ordinary sinners like them, who have been saved by God’s grace.

Being transparent can be scary. Because it makes you vulnerable. And sometimes people can take advantage of that. They can exploit your weakness. Or they can simply misinterpret things that happen in your life.

I know a true story about a pastor who was shopping one day in a computer store. He picked up a piece of computer software, intending to purchase it. While he browsed around the store, he simply put the parcel under his arm. But he forgot that it was there. And he left the store without paying for it. The store security nabbed him in the parking lot. They accused him of shoplifting.

Even though this man had never shoplifted anything in his life, and had no previous criminal record, the store pressed charges. He was convicted of shoplifting, and given a suspended sentence. But what was really tragic was that his church dropped him like a hot potato. They would not accept his explanation for the incident. They asked him to resign, which he did, and he has not been able to find a pastorate since.

Not much grace on the part of the church in that situation, was there? How would you feel if you were that pastor? Angry? Bitter? Vindictive?

How do you respond when people misunderstand you, misinterpret your actions, and question your motives? How do you react when you allow people into your life and then they betray your trust?

Your respond the way Jesus responded to Judas, one of his disciples. You respond with grace. You respond with forgiveness.

If you don’t, you’ll begin to close up into a shell and shut people out of your life. You’ll go into a defensive, protective mode, and you can’t impact people if you live your life like that.

If you’ve ever gone shopping in New York City, you’ve seen those little electronic stores—of which there seem to be zillions—that sell cameras and radios and watches. Every one of them is owned by a proprietor who can barely speak English.

All of them have very interesting and attractive display windows, but, because of the crime in NY City, in front of the windows are big heavy bars. The window display looks fun and inviting, but then you see those great big bars that are so forbidding and intimidating.

If you are living your life in a defensive posture because you’ve gotten ripped off by someone in your past, you’re just like one of those little stores. People might like what they see in the window, but the bars are a real turn-off.

We have to understand that people are sinners. And because they are sinners, they can be very hurtful and even hateful at times. The only thing that can counteract that is God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s forgiveness.

Who are you letting into your life? You can make a tremendous impact for God that can, quite literally change history, by simply living for Jesus and letting others come alongside you as you do.