Morning, brothers and sisters. I want to read a couple of verses.
In Luke 2:49, the Lord Jesus, speaking to His parents after they had been looking for Him, said:
“How is it that ye sought me? knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Then, in Revelation 3:2:
“For I have found no works of thine perfected before my God.”
And in 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul says:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”
If we go back to 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul exhorts Timothy:
“Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses.”
Let’s pray.
Lord, we thank You that, when the leper came to You, he did not ask whether You were able to heal him. He asked whether You were willing. We thank You, Lord, that You said, “I am willing,” and You touched him and healed him.
Father, this morning we want to come to You and ask that, if You are willing, You can speak to us too. We are asking that You would speak to us; that the words that come will be Your words, and that they will come to our hearts with the power You mean them to come with—the power to heal, the power to put us on the right path, the power to give us life and sustain us.
Only You can do this, so we give Your word to You. We ask for Your Holy Spirit to witness to it, to witness that this is what You are saying to us. We ask this in Your name. Amen.
I want to continue talking out of 2 Timothy, probably for another couple of times. When we started thinking about the conference, especially about being ready for the Lord Jesus, it made me think about the last letters of the apostles—Peter, Paul, and John.
What would they have to say? What was the last thing? I mean, that is so important. These are great brothers. What is the last thing before they leave, before they go to the Lord? What is the thing that is on their hearts that they want to tell people?
I think that really sums up their ministry in a nutshell. If you had one thing—if you had one day, one letter to write somebody, and they only gave you three pages of paper—what would you tell those people?
I also think of Timothy. Timothy had been under the tutelage of Paul for years. We have been in fellowship, and for us in California it was under Floyd [unintelligible]. Here, Stephen Kaung has been here. You have been at conferences not only with Stephen Kaung, but with people like Lance Lambert. We become used to having them there.
But what happens when the Lord takes them and He does not take us? Have you thought about things like that? Paul had always been with Timothy, and now Paul is saying, “The time is at hand. I have run the race. I have been poured out as a drink offering. This is it.”
Timothy was a weak brother. Paul says, “I have run the race,” but Paul’s last word is simply encouragement for his brother. He is not teaching him anything new; he is encouraging him to go on.
If we miss that point, and if we think that we are being left alone, we are missing something. In Acts 20, Paul brought the elders of Ephesus together and said, “I have declared unto you the whole counsel of God.” Then it says that he commended them to God. That was it. He could not do anything else. His ministry there was done, and the only thing he could do was commend them to God.
We read last time in 2 Timothy 1:12:
“For I know him whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
Paul had faith that it was not him. He did not think, “What are they going to do without my ministry? God, You have to keep me here.” No, he was able to commend them to God.
Last time, we saw that Paul begins by setting Timothy on good ground. He tells Timothy that he is beloved. For us, we are to know that we are beloved of God. That is a very important thing. It is the ground that we stand on: that we are beloved by Him.
Remember what we have been reading in Romans: what can separate us from the love of God? Nothing. This is sure ground to stand on.
Even if we go away like the prodigal, the Father is out there looking and waiting. When we return, He is there to rain on us kisses and hugs. I am not saying that we should all go out and do these things, but I am saying that if we do, He is looking for us because His love has not abated for us.
His love is always hot toward us, because that is who He is. God is love.
We also found out that Timothy was being prayed for by Paul. In the same way, we are being prayed for by our risen Savior, who sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.
He intercedes in such a way that the purpose of God in our lives might be fulfilled—not necessarily asking that we miss trials and tribulations, but that when we face those trials and tribulations, we do not lose our faith. When we are restored and come through them, we strengthen our brothers, become one, and the love of God is shed abroad through us.
These are the prayers of our wonderful Savior and King before His Father for us, and His Father hears and answers prayer.
Finally, He has not left us paupers. He has given us faith as a medium of exchange. This is what we use to find out what God is like, so that God, in our estimation, becomes greater and greater as we exercise the faith that He gives us.
As that happens, we become bolder and bolder because we begin to know who our God is. Our consciousness is not on the faith that we have, but on the God in whom the faith rests. He becomes greater in our sight.
That is the foundation Paul lays for us. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 that he was a master builder. The term is really something like an architect.
An architect is not the carpenter. The architect does not do the building. The architect makes the plans and specifies the materials that should be used, but someone else actually does the building.
Paul is saying, “Timothy, I have laid a foundation for you. That foundation is Jesus Christ. Now it is time to build on that foundation.”
The part I want to talk about this morning is that Paul is exhorting, not charging. He is not saying, “You must do this.” He is exhorting Timothy; he is urging him to do this.
Exhortation is to build someone up. It is not to build someone up by saying, “Oh, you are just so good. You are just so precious. Look at your muscles. You are such a good speaker. You learn so quickly.”
No, that is flattery. Paul is not flattering Timothy, because when we are flattered, we inflate, and then we pop. Great is that fall, is it not? Some of us have been inflated, and we have popped before. We thought what we had was a weight of eternal glory and found out that all we had was hot air. It is quite a shock.
But Paul says, “Timothy, I have laid a foundation. Now it is time to build on that foundation, and I am urging you: build it. Build on these things.”
Let us read 2 Timothy 1, beginning in verse 8. I want to remind you that I am not doing a verse-by-verse study. I am going to come back and touch some other things another time, so do not say, “Hey, you skipped verse 6.” I will come back to that.
These are the things I feel the Lord is saying to me, especially in light of the time in which we are living.
“Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God; who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, whereunto I was appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher.
“For which cause I also suffer these things: yet I am not ashamed; for I know him whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
— 2 Timothy 1:8-12
Then in 2 Timothy 2:1:
“Thou therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
And in 2 Timothy 2:3-7:
“Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier.
And if also a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully.
The husbandman that laboreth must be the first to partake of the fruits.
Consider what I say; for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things.”
Then, in 2 Timothy 2:22:
“But flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
The foundation has been laid for us, and the exhortation to Timothy is really a simple one. In verse 9, Paul says that God “saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.”
The building begins for Timothy with remembering that he has been saved and called. Timothy, bring these two things to mind. Number one: you have been saved by God. It is a done deal.
It says, “Who saved us.” That is pretty secure. That is a pretty good foundation. You are inside the gate.
Do you remember reading The Pilgrim’s Progress? Probably kids have not read it, since it is such an old book, but older people remember reading the old English version. I had a book with really nice pictures in it.
You remember how Christian gets inside the gate. As soon as he gets inside the gate, his journey is not finished, but he is safe. He is safe from the City of Destruction. There are perils that he goes through during the rest of his journey, but he is inside the gate.
Brothers and sisters, we are inside the gate. We can rest in that. But that does not mean we are to stay just inside the gate and sit there the rest of our lives.
We have a journey. We have a purpose. God has called us to a purpose. That purpose starts with getting us in the gate, but that is where it starts.
He says, “You have been called”—with a holy calling, not according to works, but according to His purpose. Grace was given to us.
When we look at Him calling us, it is not according to our works. We do not have to merit His calling. It is not as though God says, “I have these positions. You can apply: apostle, teacher, helps, healing. Which do you want to apply for?” Then we have to say, “Oh, gee whiz, let’s check my résumé.”
Our résumés are not going to make it. This is the sovereignty of God at work. It is not an arbitrary thing either. It is something that the Lord, in His sovereignty, has marked out: “I have a purpose for you.”
If you come into relationship with Me, you will discover that purpose. In general, the purpose is to be like Christ. In the end, when we see Him, we shall be like Him.
But there are more specific things He has for us in His purpose. What does Ephesians say? It says that He created us for good works. He created us for something. We are born again; we are born into this kingdom for a purpose, for a reason. It is not just to sit inside the gate.
We do not need to earn anything, but we need to walk in fellowship with Him to find out these things. It is according to His purpose, His sovereignty.
Have you ever thought about the people that God has used? Rahab the harlot—His sovereignty. Ruth—His sovereignty. We look at Abraham and venerate Abraham, but Abraham was just a pagan. He was probably a wealthy pagan, but he was just a pagan. He was just a man.
God had to bring him out and sovereignly call him out. Moses said, “I cannot speak well.” One of my favorites is Jephthah. Most of us do not like to read the Book of Judges, but when I read it, my favorite judge is Jephthah.
You might say, “Oh my gosh, he is the one who sacrificed his daughter.” I do not think he actually sacrificed her. I think he committed her to remain unmarried for the rest of her life, robbing her of that joy. But here he was, the son of a harlot, and yet he was used to deliver the Israelites. It is an amazing thing—His sovereignty.
Look at the people He uses: Peter, Paul, Moody. What was Moody? Was he a shoe salesman? A shoe salesman.
If God can sovereignly act in their lives—and they are just like us, a shoe salesman—why not us? After all, is He not God? Is He not able? If we walk in what He tells us to walk in, is He not able?
Then it says grace was given. Grace is the means of achieving His purpose, of carrying His purpose all the way through.
I want to start with the fact that it is a holy calling. A holy calling means that we are called out, separated, and separated unto God Himself. He calls us to Himself.
As an example, I want to use Simon Peter. If we did a study on him, we would see that he was called four times. That gives me hope, because I do not know how many times I have blown it and the Lord has had to come back and get me.
Peter was the same way. In Peter’s first call, Andrew brought him to Jesus and said, “We have found the Christ.” Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Thou art Simon the son of John: thou shalt be called Cephas.” He changed his name.
In a sense, this is Peter’s conversion experience. He meets Jesus, and Jesus says, “You are no longer this; you are this.” That is a calling. We have been called into a reconciled position.
We no longer go by that old name. We go by that new name, because that is how God sees us. God does not see the old anymore; He sees the new. Brothers and sisters, if we could just get hold of that—that He no longer sees the old, but sees the new.
He calls into being things that are not. That is a wonderful verse. We need to think on it and believe it, because we do not see things, but He does.
The other three times Peter is called, he is called out of his boat. It seems that Peter is always going back to his boat, and the Lord is always calling him out of his boat.
The first time, he is in his boat fishing with his brother, and Jesus says, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.” Peter comes out.
Then in Luke 5, Peter is called again. This time Jesus goes into his boat and preaches. He says, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” Peter lets down the nets, and they have this great catch.
Peter had said, in effect, “Jesus, You are a carpenter; I am a fisherman. But I will humor You.” Then they have the great catch, and Peter comes to the realization: “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
These two callings are really one and the same: the call to discipleship. Do you know what a disciple is? A disciple is a learner.
When Jesus calls us, He calls us first to learn. I am not saying He calls us to a classroom to learn. We sang earlier about being yoked. We are yoked to Him.
It is not a classroom situation; it is a life situation. When Peter, John, and all those other men were called to Jesus, they went out and lived with Him for those three years. Not so that He could merely preach to them and teach them, but so that they could see what His life was like all the time.
They saw that He prayed, to the point that they said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” He did not say, “Come here, men; I want to teach you how to pray.” It is interesting that He let it come out of them.
They saw the power He had, and they said, “Teach us to pray.” He could send them out. He could ask them to do things. He was the Master; they were the disciples. He called them into relationship.
The reason I bring up the second calling is that we enter into relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, wanting to be His disciples. Then we begin to see ourselves as we really are.
When we come into the light, we find out how dirty we are. That is going to happen. But the wonderful thing is that when Peter confessed, “Get away from me; I am a sinner,” the Lord did not say, “Whoa, you really are. I had better go on John’s boat, because John loves Me.”
Jesus simply said, “Fear not.” Do not fear seeing yourself as you are. That is really what He is saying: “I see you. I know who you are. There is nothing going to come up later that will shock Me, because I know you very well.”
He could have told Peter that day, “You are going to deny Me three times,” but that was meant for a different time. He could have said, “Peter, I can tell you how bad you really are.” But He did not. He just said, “Do not fear.”
That is the word to those who want to follow the Lord. You are going to find out what you are really like and how God could never have anything to do with you in yourself. You are going to find that out as you go on with the Lord. But praise be to Him: He says, “Do not fear, but follow Me, and I will make you fishers.”
In other words, He reaffirms His own calling of Peter. His calling is sure. His calling is true.
What is the verse in Romans concerning Israel?
“For the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of.”
— Romans 11:29
God does not take them back. Brothers and sisters, is that not a wonderful thing? These are things we need to think on because we have to have our minds transformed.
How can we be living sacrifices if we are thinking that God does not want anything to do with us, or that God is keeping score? God is training us. God is bringing us along. So He says, “Remember that you are being called.”
The last time He calls Peter out of his boat is after Jesus has risen from the dead. The Lord asks him, “Lovest thou me?” Then He says, “Tend my sheep.” This is the call to service.
We are called to be disciples, and out of that discipleship comes the call to service—to serve the living God in the training we have received and in the relationship we have with Jesus Christ.
Timothy was the same way. Timothy was called into discipleship. He was Paul’s disciple. But he was also called to service.
In the same way, we have those callings. The Lord Jesus Christ has called us out of the place we were. He has called us into His kingdom and to come alongside Him, to be yoked with Him as disciples. He says, “Come, learn of Me”—not just from Me, but learn of Me. See what I am like in this relationship.
Then He says, “Go out and serve.” Out of this, go out and serve. He is not going to leave us alone, but we have to remember that we are called. God has called us to a purpose.
When we forget that, we find ourselves slipping into this, that, and the other thing. We have to continually call ourselves to remembrance, just as we remember the Lord every Sunday, every Lord’s Day.
Every morning, as we said last time, we should look at ourselves and say, “I am beloved by God.” We should also say, “He has called me. He has called me to a purpose.” We should remind ourselves daily, sometimes several times a day: “He has called me—even me.”
We may think, “Well, He would not call me.” Remember 1 Corinthians 1. Who are the people He called?
“But God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;
“And the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are:
“That no flesh should glory before God.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
The things that are not—that is so important. “That no flesh should glory before God.” But of Him are you in Christ Jesus. He is the One who put you in His Son. That is wonderful. You did not climb in there. He put you in there. He pulled you out of the drink and put you in His Son.
We have this calling, and in light of this calling, 2 Timothy 2:1 says, “Be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
Grace is how we really find out what this calling is about. We think of grace, in one way, as unmerited favor. Brothers and sisters, it is that. It is unmerited favor.
One of the greatest stories of unmerited favor is when God brought Manasseh back to the throne. In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, Manasseh ruled the longest and was the wickedest of all the kings. He filled the temple with idols, killed people, and was taken away to prison.
In prison, it says that he prayed to the Lord and humbled himself, and the Lord heard his prayer. That has to be one of the most wonderful things. How bad can you be? Paul says he was chief of sinners, but Manasseh was pretty chief too.
Yet God heard his prayer and brought him back to his throne. If you read the rest of his account, he tried to undo many of the things he had done.
Grace, on one hand, is unmerited favor. But grace is also the enablement to do things—the endowment from above, the power from on high to do what God has asked you to do.
Paul says, “Be strong in the grace of God.” How do you become strong in grace? One way is to stand in the position He has given you. That is one way you are strong in grace: you stand in that position.
There are means of receiving grace. Being raised Catholic, we felt you got grace by doing the sacraments. You went to Mass, and that got you grace. You went to confession, and that got you grace. You took communion, and that got you grace. You did a novena, and that got you grace.
But Hebrews speaks of coming “unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.” What are the means of getting grace? I am not merely speaking about favor; I am speaking about power—power to do what the Lord is asking us to do, enablement.
Suppose you have been asked to lead a Bible study. “Oh Lord, what am I going to do? I have never done this before.” Where do you go for grace?
The first means of grace is prayer. You have not because you ask not. Ask for things. We are not merely talking about, “Lord, bless my aunt. Bless this.” We are talking about specifically asking for a situation: “God, I need. God, show me. I need light.”
It is prayer that does not give up either. Sometimes we think prayer is a one-time thing. We think that is all we need to do, but sometimes we need to press in.
How many times do your parents give you something the first time you ask? Sometimes it is after persistence. Certainly, sometimes there is a definite no, and you can persist all you want, but it remains a definite no. But if you really want something, will you keep asking?
If you do not keep asking, what do your folks think? They think it is a passing thing. It does not really matter.
Prayer is not merely asking for things; it is also a way of getting to know God. It is seeking God. We often leave that out of prayer. We do not think that we seek God through prayer, but we are seeking to know Him: “Lord, show Yourself to me. Lord, open Your word so I see You in it. I need to see You.”
How many of us have prayed that? “I need to see You. I cannot go on like this.” Those are prayers that are ways of receiving grace.
Another means is devotional reading and study of the Word of God. I come from a background in California where Bible study is really important. There are other places where the idea is that Bible study is too technical.
Oh, brothers and sisters, where are our prophets and teachers going to come from if they do not study the Word? How can you teach the Word of God if you do not study it? There has to be study of the Word.
Without objective truth, you cannot be led into subjective truth. You have to have a point on which to focus, and then the reality can come into your own life. You have to see it first, and then desire it and pray for it until it becomes subjectively real.
If Christianity is merely subjective, woe to us. We are left to our feelings. But thank God that He has given us His Word so that we can curb our feelings with His Word and say, “I can hang on to this. If it is not real, I can pray and say, ‘Lord, make it real. Let me see this.’”
Remember Watchman Nee’s example of trying to reckon himself dead. He tried to reckon it, but he could not see it. Then finally the Lord showed him, “You are dead,” and he ran around saying, “Everybody, I am dead! I am dead!”
But if it had not been for the objective truth, he would never have sought the subjective reality. That is the same for us. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You have to have study of the Word, but you also have to have devotional study. Devotional means that my heart is open. It is not merely technical; my heart is open to God. “As I study Your Word, what are You trying to say to me?” Not merely, “What does it mean?” but, “What are You trying to say to me?”
We do need to know what it means, but we also need to know, as it means this, what does that mean to me? You need both.
A devotional study means, “I am devoted.” I am not devoted merely to the study of the Scriptures; I am devoted to the One who wrote the Scriptures, that He might unveil them to me.
We can study the Bible without being devoted to the Lord—just to study the Bible and gain knowledge. But our knowledge is supposed to be the knowledge of God that leads us to Him. From that comes faith, and faith causes us to step out and find the reality of who God really is.
Finally, another means of obtaining grace is fellowship with God Himself. That is what our reading of Scripture should do: it should bring us to seeking fellowship with Him.
I am not talking about some eerie little presence or a spine-chilling tingle going up your back. But there are times when you are praying or studying the Word, and you know that God is right there.
It is not simply a feeling; it is a sense in your spirit: holiness is here; love is here. That is what I am talking about. Those are means of grace—knowing that God is with me. Then I can go out and do.
Those are means of grace. This is how we are strengthened to go about our calling.
Timothy had a calling. He had to be strengthened to carry out that calling. In the rest of the verses we read in 2 Timothy 2, Paul says, “Timothy, because you have this calling, respond to the call.”
You must respond to it. When Jesus called Peter, “Follow Me,” Peter did not say, “Hi, Jesus. Yeah, we are fishing. Yeah, good to see You. Yeah, we will be with You.” No, he came out of the boat and followed. They left everything and followed Him.
That is what it is: leave everything and follow Him.
Paul gives three examples. The first, in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, is a soldier. Timothy, respond to your call as though you are a soldier.
You are going to have to endure adversity. When we are called to follow the Lord, it does not mean that suddenly we have the yellow brick road rolled out in front of us, all the way to Oz, and we skip merrily along until we reach Oz.
No. Sometimes, when soldiers are going toward an objective, the roads have been blown up. People are not always trying to help you as a soldier.
Think of soldiers in Iraq. They had been called to do something, but they were in enemy land. Brothers and sisters, the Lord has not taken us out of enemy land. He has called us to a high calling, but He has left us in enemy land.
What does enemy mean? Are they for us? No, they are not for us; they are against us.
Just because we have been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light, we are still living with our feet in the realm where the enemy reigns. Notice I said reigns. He reigns until the Lord comes back—except, hopefully, in our lives.
We are in a place where it is not going to be the easiest thing to follow the Lord. So Paul says, “You are going to have to endure.” That does not mean merely put up with it; it means come through it.
Whatever is thrown at you, you have to come through it. You have to take it and come through it. That is why we were given the armor in Ephesians 6. We have to go through it; we have to endure it. But there is a coming out.
The other thing he says about the soldier is, “Do not entangle yourself with the affairs of this life.” Have you ever been tangled up in something? It is hard to get out of, is it not? You cannot walk right when you are tangled.
When I was in school, I had big feet, and somebody tied my shoes together. When you do not know it, you are not ready for it. If you tie your shoes together as a gag, you know what is happening. But when someone does it and you do not know, it is really a shock.
You cannot walk. All of a sudden, your stride has been taken away from you. You lose your balance, and you fall.
It is not saying that you have to come out of life. It is saying, do not get so caught up in life here that you cannot walk the way you are supposed to walk.
You have to deal with your kids. You have to work your job. You have to do those things. But do not let those things consume you. Do not be entangled by those things.
Remember your calling. You do not put your calling off. You can put the other things off. That is what Paul is saying.
Jesus told His disciples not to be anxious about what they would wear or what they would eat. God knows about those things, but seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.
Brothers and sisters, that is a real step of faith. You have to believe that God is going to provide for you. We think, “If I do not do this, Lord, I am going to miss out on something.” The Lord says, “Trust Me,” but you have to step out in faith and see.
Remember your calling as a soldier: endure and do not get tangled up.
Secondly, Paul says, respond to your call as an athlete. Athletes in those days had to train. What Paul is speaking about with an athlete is discipline.
You have to live a disciplined life. That does not mean you have to have your life so orderly, but it does mean that you have certain things that you do consistently.
I do not have to discipline my life to meet my needs as far as eating; I eat automatically. I have to discipline myself not to eat, perhaps, but I do not have to discipline myself to eat. But what about spiritually?
Athletes in those Olympic times, before they could even compete, had to take an oath that they had completed ten months of training for the event. If they had not completed those ten months, they could not compete.
What about us as Christians? Are we disciplining ourselves? It is hard, because I know we have done this: we come to a meeting, perhaps having read nothing, and say, “I am going to participate because I have this background knowledge.”
It is not that people will not be blessed, but if I am not in the Word and if I am not praying, there is really nothing of value in it because I am not in touch. That is the big thing: disciplining ourselves to be in touch.
You know it in marriage relationships. If you do not stay in touch with your wife or husband, something is lost. A coolness comes in. Coolness also comes into our relationship with the Lord when we do not keep disciplined in receiving grace.
We need to stay in that relationship—disciplined in the relationship. It is daily. The athlete trained daily.
When you were in high school and involved in athletics, you practiced every day. Sometimes, even when it was not the season, you continued practicing.
I played in a student-teacher game last year. I do not run; my knees are shot. I remember the next three weeks. I must have looked ninety years old getting out of my car. I was so sore. When you are not in shape, that is what happens.
It is daily training. Jesus said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” This is death to self, death to my pleasures.
“Oh, but I want to watch Law & Order.” The Lord may say, “Well, watch Law & Order. I am not going to stop you, but I miss you.”
This is a discipline, brothers and sisters. You might say, “Jim, you are putting us under the law.” No, I am not. This is life. This is spiritual life.
If you want to grow spiritually, you have to feed the spiritual man. If you do not feed the spiritual man, he will wither away. But the Lord says, “Rise up and walk.”
What is that old hymn?
Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things;
Give heart and soul and mind and strength
To serve the King of kings.
Third, Paul says that we should remember our calling as a farmer. That may sound strange. Some people look at the statement that the farmer partakes of the fruits and say, “Well, ministers get paid.” But I do not think that is what it means.
When you study to lead a Bible study, who gets blessed the most? You do. Why? Because you have seen things you would never have seen before. Some things you do not share because they apply only to you, but the Lord lets you taste things you would never have tasted before.
The farmer plants the seed; he sows. We usually look at “you reap what you sow” as a negative thing, but look at it positively. You sow to the Spirit; you reap life.
As farmers, we plant. We go to the Lord and plant those things. We wait. We tend to that calling. In time, we receive the fruit of it.
That is the truth for us. We are not merely supposed to remember our calling; we are to tend to the calling. Let us give ourselves to it.
Those of you who have gardens take time to put mulch around things. We do not do that in California; maybe that is a Virginia thing. But you tend to it.
It is the same with our spiritual lives. We tend to them. If we tend to them, we reap the fruit of that life. What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, patience, and all these things—things you cannot put on by yourself.
We sometimes think that we are simply big receptacles for spiritual knowledge, for Bible knowledge. But, brothers and sisters, it is not simply knowledge. “Lord, You give me this—how does it apply? What are You really saying to me?”
Finally, in verse 22, Paul says, “Flee youthful lusts.” We can look at youthful lusts in a very negative way because we usually think of something sexual when we hear the word lust. But lust is desire. It is desire that wants to be filled now.
We can have many lusts. Some of us lust for knowledge. We lust to be the winner of every argument. Some people say that when Paul says to flee youthful lusts, he means not to get into arguments over things that do not really matter.
But I want to look at youthful lusts another way. Youthful lusts are things that are aimless and pointless. They go nowhere. They have no real value. They dissipate; they disappear into the air.
For example, why do you play computer games? You might say, “It is for my entertainment.” Okay, that is good. But what value is it to you? “Oh, I have really built-up thumbs. I am strong—thumb wrestle me.”
But after you put your name by the score—Jim—you go out to your neighbor and say, “I just scored three thousand on Asteroids.” I mean, it is nothing. It dissipates. It is gone with the use of it. It is like food: gone with the use of it. It is aimless; it is pointless.
How many of us—and I am pointing the finger at me—involve ourselves in things that are pointless and aimless? With the using, they are gone. That is what I think a youthful lust is.
Paul says, “Flee those things. Run away from them.” But if you are running away, you have to be running to something. He finishes the verse by saying, “Pursue.”
Flee from the thing that has no worth, and pursue the things that do have worth.
Pursue righteousness—the things that are right: right actions and right thoughts.
Pursue faith—the exercise of faith, being brought into a bigger God by faith.
Pursue love. The word here is agape. Pursue the love of God: to know the love of God, to display the love of God, and to have it displayed through you.
Pursue peace: relationship with God, and relationship with one another, because it says to pursue peace with those of like heart.
When Paul says to Timothy, “Start building,” he is saying, “Timothy, you have a calling, and you need to tend to the calling.”
Paul did not come and say, “Timothy, I am going to die. These are the most important teachings I ever had. Get the Letter to the Ephesians and read it because those are important teachings. Get to Colossians and read that.”
He did not say that. He did not tell him about the mystery. He said, “Timothy, you have been saved, and you have been called. Tend to the calling.”
What good is the knowledge of the mysteries if the calling is not tended to? It is just knowledge.
That is why the verse in Revelation means so much to me: “I have found no works of thine perfected before my God.” Tend to the calling.
When you tend to the calling, when you come to the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to press in,” all the other things will be added.
The things we get from God Himself will be our ministry, not merely the things that others tell us. It is what we get from Him Himself.
I am not saying that this makes other ministry unimportant, because God can speak to you through ministries. But if you are not open to it, how can God speak to you? Tend to your calling.
We sang a song. A lot of times, we hear something like this and say, “Oh, gee whiz, now I feel so bad.” I hate that. When we speak up here, I always have the feeling, “Oh, I have killed these people. I have hit them over the head.”
But you can take things in different ways. You can say, “Oh man, I really have to crank it up this week. I have to do better. I have to do damage to myself.” That is not what the Lord is saying.
The Lord is saying, “Do you hear Me calling you?” That is all. “Do you hear Me calling? Respond to Me. Just come to Me.”
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
— Matthew 11:28
We think that our lives are going to be hammered by Him, but He says, “I will give you rest.” The rest is not that we do not have to do anything.
The rest is knowing, first of all, that He loves us. Second, the rest is knowing that Someone is taking the lead. Someone has taken the lead, and all you have to do is follow Him. Get in step with Him. Learn of Me.
The song we sang earlier ended with this: “May hearts be rekindled with fire from above.”
Brothers and sisters, let the fire come from above. If the Lord is calling us, let Him have the fire. Let Him, with that fire, touch us.
Let us ask Him, “Lord, touch me with that fire, because I am cold.” If we are not cold, let us say, “Lord, thank You that You have been the fire in my life.”
There is hope for us. Let us remember our calling.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we do want to thank You that You have given us a good foundation to stand on, and we are standing on that. We thank You that You are the Lover of our souls, and You will not let us go. We count on that.
Lord, we want to respond to You in the way You are seeking from us: with our hearts, not with an outward response, but with an inward response that bows the knee to You as You touch the things You want to touch.
Lord, we thank You that You would not keep us in the dark. We thank You that though men may pass away, You do not pass away.
Help us, Lord, in responding to You and drawing close to You. May we find, as we draw near to You this week, that You draw near to us. We ask this in Jesus’ name.