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Good Monday morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends, I hope you had a good weekend.
This past weekend we considered together the opening of Paul’s end of life charge to Timothy found in 2 Timothy 4. We only looked at verse one since it is such a powerful verse. If for some reason you missed it, I urge you to find time to listen to it this week. You can always go to past ‘walks’ by going to the “Daily Archives” tab on the top of this page. There you’ll find all of them, all the way back to when we started last May 1st.
So now let’s open our Bibles and look at the charge Paul gave Timothy: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season…” (2 Tim. 4:2) Paul didn’t just mean for Timothy to prioritize what we understand today to be Sunday sermons or homilies. I believe Timothy understood Paul to mean: communicate with conviction every time you speak the Word of God, no matter the setting, and if it’s one person or a thousand who hear you! Why is that important? Because the Word of God is the most important thing that could ever come out of your mouth and mine, my friends!
Timothy also understood he needed to be ready at all times, to bring God’s perspective. It means be ready and take every opportunity to communicate God’s truth to anyone with whom God seems to have opened an opportunity for you. It means being alert always, to the conversations and circumstances in which we find ourselves, and when the Holy Spirit prompts your mind and heart to say some God truth, do so with humility but confident in its truthfulness! Peter wrote it this way “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)
Now let’s remember that in Paul’s day the Old Testament was for the most part written on large scrolls, and the New Testament was just beginning to be written. There were no pocket New Testaments, no downloadable Bibles for Cell phones. So it was vital that Christians memorized vast amounts of God’s Word, so they could bring God’s truth FROM MEMORY into conversations anytime, anywhere.
Do you remember this from Psalm 119:9,11 “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your Word… I have hidden Your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Did you know every verse of Psalm 119 is focused on the power of God’s Word when applied to life? Oh my hope for all of us, my friends, is that God grows an insatiable hunger for His Word in our lives, so by the time we finish 2020, we are spending more time each day in His Word, than we are now. And we are memorizing key verses often. Might I even encourage you to try and memorize one a week?
Paul’s charge to Timothy continues: “…correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.“ (2 Tim. 4:2) Now friends I’m sure you remember that this has been a frequent theme of Paul’s instructions to both Titus and Timothy, as leaders of the Christian movement. False teachers and discord were sadly all too prevalent. In part because the New Testament was just being written, so all these little groups of Christians did not have the writings that you and I have of the Gospels, Paul and Peter’s letters, and the rest of the New Testament.
So you see the importance of truth teaching and clarifying misunderstanding. That is why, friends, it’s so important you and I immerse ourselves in God’s Word! And when given the opportunity we try to correct the distortions of God’s truth that we hear. And to do so “with great patience and careful instruction”. That doesn’t need explanation does it? It means when the person walks away from a conversation with you or me, they feel encouraged, clear about God’s truth, not discouraged or humiliated or wounded.
Notice please Paul’s next statement which seems to be a remarkably accurate description of today: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim. 4:3,4) So I ask you my friends, no matter where in our world that you are receiving this, today… no matter where you look in your part of the society in which you are living… this is an accurate reflection of our human population, isn’t it?
It’s true in religion, in politics, in education, in health care, and in business. While bad news sells in the news business, we much prefer hearing that which makes us feel good about ourselves, don’t we? Sadly the truth is we live at a time in history where we should not assume what we hear, no matter the source, is necessarily truthful. We need to teach our children, grandchildren and maybe even our ageing parents, to be on the alert for scams, deceivers, and deception that could entrap us, and that could lead us to make choices which could steal our resources, ruin our reputation, lead us into bondage and even kill us and those we love.
As we sit with Timothy and he reads for the first time, what Paul has written to him, I suspect about now Timothy might have set down the scroll, stood to his feet, start pacing and saying something like …“oh my, I need to ponder this. This is big, this is really important. The future of the Christian movement in my city and maybe everywhere in the world, depends on the ability of true followers of Jesus to live this out, everyday. So what does this mean for me and the people I’m trying to help here?”
Let’s look around our cities, our States or Provinces, our countries, my friends… what do we see happening in Politics, Education, Health Care, Business but especially in Religion as we filter it through this powerful warning from Paul? And what do we sense Jesus is saying to us about how He wants to help us be the type of people Paul was challenging Timothy to be? How do we become like Timothy? How do we shine the light of truth and hope into our darkened world, regardless of our age, marital status, educational level or family background?
Well, look at what Paul says next: “But you, keep you head in all situations…” There it is! If our minds and hearts are filled with God’s truth, and if we want to live ‘God honoring’ in every situation, everyday, we have to ‘keep our heads’. It means THINK and ACT as Jesus would! We do that when we think, speak, act with our minds and hearts filled with the Holy Spirit of God and God’s truth wisdom!
Then do you see Paul next says to Timothy: “…endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Tim. 4:5)
25 years ago Dawn and I lived in northern New Jersey. The West Point Military Academy was a nice Saturday drive up the Palisades Parkway about 30 minutes or so, and we often went there to walk the grounds and be inspired by the history, the statues, the flags, the cadets in their uniforms etc. Everywhere on the campus are three words etched in stone… Duty, Honor, Country. You can’t walk the West Point campus for long or sit in the historic Cadet Chapel, without feeling a profound sense of history, sacrifice, valor, bravery, and pride in the story of the US Army and what they have accomplished, around the world in fighting for freedom, since their founding on June 14, 1775.
In my office here at home, I have some artifacts that remind me of that place, and the feeling I always had there… the feeling that as Christians we are called to the same! As Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God… that is our Country. As He invites us to follow Him in defeating dark evil in our lives, our families, our neighborhoods, our nation and the world, that is our great privilege and our Duty, as Christ followers. And as we walk with Jesus every day, we live for the Honor and glory of God! Do you see how those three great words should fit us, as we ‘walk with Jesus’ as Christians?
And sometimes that means we face opposition, so Paul said ‘endure hardship’.
And sometimes as we speak God’s truth, people find their eyes opened, their hearts touched and they seek to know God and we have the great privilege of telling them of Jesus and His Gospel, and that’s what Paul meant when he said ‘the work of an evangelist.”
And as we simply live each day as an authentic friend and follower of Jesus Christ, obedient to whatever His Holy Spirit leads us to do in each and every circumstance, that my friends is how we “…discharge the duties of your ministry” as Paul wrote to Timothy. Life is ministry. It’s being on mission with Jesus, all of us, everywhere.
Do you remember when Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth he said “Therefore if anyone is IN CHRIST, they are a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come! All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal [to the world] through us.” (2 Cor. 5:17,18,20)You know by now that’s one of my favorite verses, especially when I’m at West Point! But I don’t live at West Point and neither do you… but you and I both have the great privilege of living this out every day, everywhere in the world: Duty, Honor, Country for the glory and honor of Jesus!
Oh Lord Jesus, we thank and praise you for these opening verses of 2 Timothy chapter 4!
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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