FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

2 TIMOTHY 4:6—18
July 25-27, 2009
8th Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Tim Smith

2 TIMOTHY 4:6—186 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
9 Do your best to come to me quickly, 10 for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. 12 I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
14 Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. 15 You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.
16 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (NIV)

These are some of the final words of Paul’s last letter. He knows he is about to die because of his faith—he compares his situation to a drink offering being poured out as was done against the side of a stone altar. The cup was tipped, and the drink was already running out. The time left for Paul was very short. He also uses a sailing term, which in English is “the time has come for my departure,” although I think you would understand if I said, “the time has come for me to untie the mooring ropes,” or “the time has come for me to cast off.”

Paul describes his life and his ministry in three parallel phrases: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” As we read these words and ponder them, we also hear Paul giving Timothy a series of updates about people they both knew and were concerned about, some encouragements, some very human requests from Paul, and an update on the status of his trial.

In the updates on people in his life, Paul tells us why he is alone. First of all, he sent many of his companions away to take care of ministries throughout the world. He could have kept them with him for companionship, but there was still work to do for the sake of the gospel, so Paul sent men like Tychicus and Crescens and his favorite trouble-shooter, Titus, off to take care of congregations that needed leadership. But there were others who had deserted Paul, and so when Paul gives an update on his trial, he says that everyone has deserted him—but he doesn’t want that held against anyone. In fact, it puts into Paul’s mind another man who had once deserted him, Mark the Evangelist, who had turned away from a mission trip with Paul and Barnabas, and was the cause for Paul and Barnabas parting company.

Now Paul wants Mark to come to him and is careful to say that Mark is “useful” to him—perhaps Paul is aware that what he is writing will be accepted as Scripture, just as a dozen or so other letters by Paul were being circulated already throughout the churches as a part of God’s holy word. Just as Jesus reinstated Peter as an Apostle before his ascension into heaven, Paul wanted to reinstate Mark formally so that the churches would not reject Mark’s preaching or Mark’s Gospel.

Paul’s example for us here is to repair a reputation when we have been involved in some way with the way that reputation is perceived. And the easiest way to look at this is to ask yourself, “How would you want to be treated if you were Mark?” Imagine being known as the guy who deserted Paul. Did Mark get looks? Whispers? A pointed finger? The only person who could fix that reputation was Paul himself, and that’s what he did—and that’s what we should do, when the moment comes to help someone restore their name.

In the second half of our text, Paul talks about fighting the good fight in his trial. From a strictly human perspective, the trial had not seemed to go well. Paul was going to lose his life. But Paul had not gone to Rome to preserve his life. He had gone to Rome to proclaim the Gospel—and so if we can keep that in mind we will see that Paul had accomplished what he had set out to do.

In the game of chess, there is a point where a piece is more valuable if it accomplishes a certain move and is then sacrificed than if it is just held back and goes unused. Paul had done everything he could to carry the gospel out to the world, and especially to the Gentile world. And if the time had come for his life to end, then Paul could rejoice that he had remained faithful to God’s word and to God’s command—as Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith.”

And Paul tells us that he didn’t stand trial alone: the Lord was with him. Paul even goes so far as to remind us of the prophet Daniel in a similar trial when he says “I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.”

Now I have a question: When, while talking about his trial, Paul also talks about the harm done to him by Alexander the metalworker (I suppose today we’d call him Alexander Smith), does Paul mean to say that this Alexander harmed Paul during his trial, with evidence or opposition or slander or false testimony? We can’t say for certain.

But when Paul talks about this man “doing him a great deal of harm” and then “opposing the message,” we need to ask ourselves. Do we find ourselves opposing the gospel of Jesus in some way in our lives? Or should you ask yourself an easier question: “Does what you say and what you do match up with what you believe about Jesus?”

And it’s an unexpected shot, isn’t it, to think that something you do, could undermine the movement of God’s word in the world. But let’s keep it out of the realm of the hypothetical. Let’s not play “let’s pretend” at all. Let’s assume, no, let’s recognize for a moment that every single one of us has, in the last month, the last week—sooner?— gotten in the way of the Gospel, or actually opposed the Gospel in some way. I was at a baseball game once where a fan reached out as a player was about to make a catch and the fan robbed the player of the ball and ruined the play—think of the times when we might have done that with God’s plan, by belittling or contradicting or otherwise getting in the way?

And now each of us can ask, must ask ourselves, objectively: “What did I do? How did I rebel against God?” Because with each of us, it’s not a case of “whether” we did this, it’s a case of “when,” and “how often.” And what was it that got in the way—greed or fear? Or something else?

Now, our lives are filled up especially with three things: First, things God wants us to do; our labor, work, taking care of our families, loving each other, and most of all our devotion to God, worship, meditation, prayer, and taking part in the sacraments. Second, there are our sins, which corrupt all of those things and damage our relationship with God like a disease. Thirdly, there are those other things that God does not forbid, and which he does not command, either, and which therefore can go either way—they can be good or sinful, depending on the condition of our heart and the motivation we have for doing those things. Let’s set all of those things aside for a moment: the dinner menu, the plans for TV watching, decisions about where to go on vacation or what clothes to buy before school starts. Let’s put all of that into a box for the moment. Now, let’s set the things God wants us to do, and put them in one column in our minds, and everything that’s left over is sin. Our sinful knee-jerk reactions to things people say just because they’re of a different political stripe. They way we like to divert attention away from ourselves when we are accused of a sin by comparing ourselves with worse sinners. You can always find a worse sinner. But what God wants us to do is to carry all of our sins and confess them; lay them at the foot of the cross and say, “I can’t fix this. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And God has picked up the steaming filth of our sins and he has removed it from our bodies, from our minds, from our heavenly account, and he has replaced our sins with Jesus’ own righteousness. Jesus “fought the good fight” in our place, and he won for us, for all time.

When we go out into the world of people, people with questions, people with pain, people with trouble, people facing death; people facing poverty; people who live in fear—we have the message of hope that doesn’t depend on a stimulus package. It doesn’t depend on the success of an economic theory. It depends on the faithfulness of God himself, and it’s a done deal. How you live from this moment forward is life in the forgiveness of sins. From today, you can say with an ancient Christian author that “the Lord is my traveling companion on the path of righteousness…because great faith and love dwell within you” (Barn. 1:4). Fight the Good Fight. Jesus has already won it. And the peace…

2 TIMOTHY 3:10—4:5
July 18th–20th, 2009
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Tim Smith

2 TIMOTHY 3:10—4:5
10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11 persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who want live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you have learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (NIV)

“Evangelist” is a word, a title, with both a very narrow and a potentially very broad definition. In the narrowest sense, the “Four Evangelists” are the four men who wrote the four gospels, and since both Matthew and John were also Apostles, this is a word used when we speak about Mark and Luke as authors of the second and third books of the New Testament.

The New Testament uses this word in a bit of a broader sense, since Philip, one of the seven men chosen to assist the Apostles with ministry in the early days of the church, is also called “an Evangelist.” And we should also be aware that being “an evangelist” is also something that Paul describes as a special spiritual gift that some people have been given, and that other have not been given.

In our time, Evangelist has taken on some new meanings. Not that many years ago, “evangelist” was a way of referring to someone who did ministry without being an ordained pastor. But in the last decade or two, the news media has used the word “Televangelist” to describe those who preach on TV, and maybe especially to those whose primary job appears to be that TV ministry, since many of us, including nearly all the Lutheran pastors in New Ulm, can be seen on TV as our various services are broadcast on local cable stations.
This weekend and continuing on into next weekend, we will be focusing our attention on the last two chapters of 2 Timothy, the final words of the Apostle Paul’s final letter, to listen to his encouragements and to be reminded of his sincere wish and encouragement: Paul tells Timothy what he wants him to do, when he wants him to do it, and how to go about doing it. The WHAT is “PREACH THE WORD.” The WHEN is IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON. And the HOW is “to correct, rebuke and encourage,” in other words, through LAW AND GOSPEL.

Today we focus our attention on how we all take part in this work for our Lord, even though not all of us have a divine call to do this publicly; but we all have the call from God to do it when the moment arises in our own lives. How can we be ready? What are the things we need to say? How do we know the difference between law and gospel and is that really important? These are all good questions and they are all bound up in his exhortation of Paul to Timothy: DO THE WORK OF AN EVANGELIST.

Paul begins this passage by tugging on his friend Timothy’s heartstrings. Paul reminds this younger pastor of what happened in Timothy’s hometown, where Paul had been stoned, almost to death. The people of Lystra took Paul to the edge of town, picked up rocks, and started throwing them and throwing them and throwing them. And you can well imagine Paul being hit in the arms as he undoubtedly would try to protect himself, and in the legs, and in the stomach, and the hard rocks were shredding his clothes and not just bruising him but breaking the skin. And perhaps breaking some of his bones—how delicate are the bones of our neck, and the ribs and the hands… And the people didn’t stop throwing rocks until Paul was knocked onto the ground, and he lay there, unconscious. Barely breathing. The crowd left and let Paul lay there, bleeding, the dust blowing into his wounds, the darkness falling. They assumed Paul would die there. But by a miracle, Paul was rescued, and whoever happened upon him—it’s reasonable to assume it may even have been a relative of Timothy’s or a friend of his family, since the group of genuine believers there was very small—but Paul gives credit to God alone for saving him.

Because of this and other experiences, Paul warns Timothy about the shaky faith of people he would encounter. He says, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, 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.” And this is a warning we still need to pay attention to, because it can be very difficult to stand up for our faith when faced with people who want to hear something else.

And we ourselves can become guilty of these things—of wishing or pretending or more often behaving as if God’s Word either doesn’t say what it does or at least says it differently. But Paul isn’t pointing that particular finger at Timothy or us—but if the finger fits, wear it. Yet Paul’s point to Timothy and to us is to remain faithful to what God’s word says when we confront people who are wandering.

And Paul says: “Be prepared, in season and out of season.” Timothy was a full-time, called Evangelist. His preparation began in his childhood with his mother and grandmother and continued under Paul himself who calls him “my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2).

And Paul continues, “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” We hear these words spoken to someone else and we begin to think to ourselves, “This Timothy had a big responsibility. He had a lot to answer for.” It is so easy to sit on the theological sidelines and analyze: Did Paul say this because of some mistakes Timothy had made? Something in which Timothy was lacking?

This is where the word of God begins to sting a little bit in our own lives. Like those rocks that got thrown at Paul in Lystra, some of these might miss us, some might hit but not be too bad; some of them hit pretty hard and leave bruises. But what about the accusations that tear into our flesh and leave us bleeding? What about the words here that keep hitting the same open wound, lacerating muscles and organs and leaving us helpless; gasping for breath? Spiritually unconscious and even dying?

Being prepared “in season,” when we expect it, is one thing. Anybody can get an answer ready ahead of time if you expect to get asked. The Confirmation student does this before his or her private examination, knowing not only what kinds of questions will be asked, but even exactly which questions will be asked. It’s the sheer number of questions that is the hard part—along with the anxiety that naturally comes with any examination.

But what about being prepared “out of season”? When a question gets asked at work, or at a family reunion, or by a friend over the phone—are we ready to answer? Pastors, professors; doctors of the Church, are we digging ever deeper and deeper into the Word of God in the original languages to refresh our memories and sharpen our skills so that we are able to answer “Thus saith the Lord” with the conviction that what we say is in fact precisely what the Lord has said?

Teacher, layman, mom, dad, student—are you digging into the tools you have at home, good tools; fine tools; that prepare you not only for answering questions, but for living your faith and for setting an example of Christian life for little ones and not-so-little ones who are watching? The Bible in a good translation, the Small Catechism, the three creeds just as we have them in the hymnal—not to mention the hymnal itself—are there not just to show how orthodox we are, but to teach us and to remind us of what God’s word really says.

The same word of God that tells us we’re not in it often enough is the very word of God that tells us what we most need to hear, right now: Our sins are forgiven. Our failings are paid for in full. Our missteps set onto the right path by our Savior Jesus. The blood of Christ, that wonderful word of God says, paid the price for my sins and yours.

More than anything else, remembering that very message of forgiveness prepares us for the work, the daily work, the struggling, difficult but essential work of an evangelist, the work of a believer who shares the gospel of forgiveness in words and by example; this is the work that brings God’s love to the mass of misunderstanding people in the world who think they are unloved. But their not.

They need an evangelist to tell them the truth. They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The message is something you already know. If we put those things together we see that you, forgiven child of God, have the right tool and the right moment to share the gospel of forgiveness with the world. When the moment comes, God will be with you. And he will have the right person in place to speak. And it’s you.

And the peace of God…