Be a Re-Builder – Build a Fire
Dr. Tom Pace
September 10, 2017
2 Timothy 1:1-7
We’re going to begin a series today on being a builder – or actually a re-builder. We intended it to be about being a builder but the storm gave us a little different twist on that. Our Scripture today is from Paul’s letter to Timothy. He is writing to Timothy to tell him just the practices he needs to follow to build the spirit up within him, and I’ll talk more about that when we get into the sermon.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands;for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:1-7 (NRSV)
Join me in prayer. O God, open us up. Open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear the word you have for us today. Open our hearts, God. Sometimes they have to be broken open. Open them up so that we might feel and then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
It took about four days I guess from front to end really for $150 billion dollars’ worth of damage to be done. Just whoosh! – Like that. This morning, right now I think, the storm is moving across the Florida Keys and millions, billions of dollars of damage being done in a matter of minutes, really. I don’t know if you saw about how the storm came across the islands in the Caribbean and there’s not much left on some of them. Fast moving storm – so powerful. It doesn’t take long to do lots of tearing down.
In my neighborhood there’s a house and when I was leaving for work in the morning there’s those big yellow machinery out there and by the time I got home from work the house is gone. It’s been picked up and put in dump trucks and hauled off. It just doesn’t take long to tear down.
I think that’s probably true in life, too. Not just in houses and storms. It’s pretty easy to be a “tearer-downer.” To be one who is the critical one, the one who likes to throw stones, the one who’s always finding something wrong. The one who likes to be a “Monday morning quarterback” and second-guess. And even “Monday morning quarterback” and second-guess ourselves. We spend lots of time tearing ourselves down.
So what I want to talk about that is how we move away from that to be builders – to be re-builders, to be constructive. To add value instead of tear it down. And over the next three weeks I want us to think of it in terms of concentric circles and to start with talking about how do we build on that space inside us? How do we open ourselves up and expand God’s spirit within us? How do we look inside?
One of my mentors’ when I am struggling with an issue I call him to whine. He often has this phrase where he says, “Just remember self-management precedes management of others.” You manage your own emotions, your own thoughts, your own actions, your own behaviors before you seek to influence the emotions, thoughts, actions and behaviors of others. You work on yourself and out of that, out of our self-management, our self-leadership, that is where our influence grows to be able to make a difference in the world around us.
So we’re going to talk today about building up inside ourselves and then next week we’re going to look at our relationships with others, our friendships, our family, our church, the people around us. Then the last week we’re going to look at building up the kingdom of God, building our community and our city and our nation and our world. Building the kingdom.
We’re going to start with ourselves. You know, even in ourselves, we are so prone to tear down. I’m going to show you my age now – my era. There’s a character from “Saturday Night Live” who’s played by Chris Farley. Remember him? He was the guy who also did the motivational speaker who lived in the van down by the river. You might remember him.
He also did a talk show host and he was a terrible talk show host. He would interview these celebrities and then he’d ask them a really dumb question. Then he’d say, “Oh, I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid!” and he’d pull at his hair.
We laughed and we laughed because that’s what we do. We say things and then even though we may not say them aloud we’re thinking, “Gosh – you’re stupid! Why are you saying that? Why did you do that? What are you thinking?”
I will tell you that in my life there are three or four really royal mess-ups that I have accomplished. Yes, yes, yes! I cannot tell you how often I’ve rehearsed those in my mind. I keep going back thinking, “You’re the guy who did that – you dummy!” And you find yourself in that business of tearing down.
Some of you are familiar with the work of Brene Brown, who’s from Houston, on shame and vulnerability. Let me read to you what she says: “Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough. Guilt is just as powerful but its influence is positive while shame is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels our disengagement.”
The verse right after the Scripture we read this morning, verse 8, says, “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but of a spirit of power and love and self-discipline…” The next verse goes, “So do not be ashamed…”
That shame, a spirit of shame, a spirit of fear, that begins to take us over and we just like to milk it. That’s how addiction, the cycle of addiction works. There’s a pain or anxiety or something inside us, so we find a behavior or a substance will ease that pain for just a little bit. So we step into that destructive behavior and then immediately after that the shame kicks in. We’re so ashamed and we’re so defeated and that creates this even greater sense of pain and anxiety and hurt. So we can’t figure out how to deal with that shame, so the addiction continues. That cycle, right?
So we have to stop that. We have to stop that tearing down, that business of tearing ourselves down right and left.
We’ve been talking a lot about “mucking out” over the last couple of weeks. That’s a word I hadn’t used much before, but I’ve said the word “mucking out” I don’t know how many times. We have to muck some stuff out – destructive habits, destructive attitudes and things that just tear us down in our lives. Then we have to replace them with a different approach.
So here’s the situation that Paul and Timothy are dealing with. Now we don’t know, and in fact, many scholars, believe that Paul didn’t actually write the letters to Timothy, the language is pretty dramatically different than in the Greek in his other letters. Many people believe that they are fragments of a variety of things that Paul had shared with Timothy and that Timothy himself has put them together and that’s how they ended up in our canon. We really don’t know.
Here’s what we do know. Paul went on three missionary journeys. He was based out of the church in Antioch in Syria and in his first missionary journey he went up into Anatolia which is modern day Turkey, to a little town called Lystra. And there was a family there, a grandmother named Lois, a mother named Eunice, and a son with a Greek father and a Jewish mother, named Timothy. This whole family became followers of Jesus. We don’t know if they did that when Paul was there or if it happened after he left or before he came, we’re not sure. But we do know that he had a relationship with this family.
So on his second missionary journey some years later he came back through Lystra again and he picked up Timothy and he took him with him. Timothy became his protégé, and Paul was his mentor. They traveled together and did ministry together for what we think is about 14 years. We can’t always do all the years exactly right but we think about 14 years.
At the end of that period Paul is going through Ephesus, which is second largest city in the Roman Empire at that time. Second only to Rome. It is a huge metropolis. Paul has planted a church there and he leaves Timothy there in that city to be the pastor of that church. He continues on his journey.
What happens in Ephesus is that things don’t go so well. Timothy struggles and there are problems with his leadership, there are problems with the leaders he’s selected. There’s a great discord theologically there. It appears that Timothy has been having some physical problems that are maybe rooted in anxiety. In fact in First Timothy Paul writes, “No longer drink only water but drink a little wine…” Then he goes on to say “... as it is good for your frequent ailments.”
Timothy is struggling and having a difficult time. Earlier Paul says, “Recalling your tears I long to see you.” Paul knows Timothy is hurting. Later he says, “Let no one despise your youth.” Timothy was a young man and Paul was saying, “Look, the others are saying, ‘You don’t know anything – you’re just a kid.’” He’s just struggling.
So what Paul does is he gives him these disciplines, this approach, these encouragements of how he is supposed to sort of deal with that sense of “I just can’t do this. I’m not enough. I’m not able to do this.”
Did you ever think that way? Think “I’m not enough”?
Here’s what he says, the first one, in verse 5: “Remember who you are. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and now I am sure lives in you. I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.”
So here’s what he does. He’s reminding Timothy, saying, “Look back and remember your faith, and remember your calling.” The laying on of hands was a sign of his being called – being sent into this ministry. So he’s saying, “Remember your faith…”
I’ll have to tell you in the most difficult times in my life I can close my eyes and go back to when I was 15 years old. I was at church camp at Little Grassy Lake at a church retreat and I gave my life to Christ. These are kid problems I had but it felt like God lifted a weight off my shoulders and cleared the darkness around me. And said, “You are so incredible, I love you so much.” To be able to close my eyes and go back to that place.
Now you might not have that kind of moment, but I wonder if there was a time when your faith felt vital and real and alive and powerful. A time when you can think, “You know, this faith that my mom and my grandparents passed on to me…” If that’s the case for you. “I’m a part of that. This isn’t just about me. This is about what God’s doing in me.”
Now he goes on to say “Remember your calling.” I’ve read verse 8 but listen to verse 9: “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.” He’s saying, “Not only remember your faith but remember that God chose you for this. Not because of your being so great but because God knew you could do this. This was in God’s purpose and God will provide everything you need to make this happen.”
One of my favorite Bible stories is David and Goliath. Maybe you know the story. But Saul and the army of Israel are facing the army of the Philistines and they send out their fiercest warrior. He’s 9 feet tall and Saul says, “Who wants to go fight the Philistine?” And everyone’s saying, “Not me, man!”
But little David, the shepherd boy, says, “Put me in, coach, I can do it!” Saul says, “You can’t do that, you’re just a kid. He’s been a warrior since his youth and you’re just a kid.”
And here’s what David says, “I have been tending my flock and fighting lions and bears since I was a kid. What is this Philistine compared to them?” He’s saying, “All of my life I’ve been preparing for this time.”
But what I’d tell you is that when you look back God has been working in your life to prepare you for today and the challenges you have today. And tomorrow - today will be part of the preparations for tomorrow’s challenges.
Look and remember what God has done in your life. Look how God has been at work in you to form you and shape you for just this very time. Look back.
And the second thing he says, “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.” Rekindle that fire. One of the translations says, “Fan into flame the gift of God.” I like that. So within us we have this fire of faith that we have to tend the fire. We have to keep it burning.
I listen to five sermons a week, five different preachers around the country. Amazing gift of podcasts, I just love it. And part of the reason I do that is so that I can steal their stuff and use it for you. As long as somewhere in the sermon I say, “It has been said that…” I can say anything and pretend it was there. I do that all the time.
But the other reason is that it fires me up. It feeds the fire within me. When I listen to these people preach I can feel my heart beat faster as it’s happening. I can feel the flame begin to build.
One of the reasons we worship, that you come and you listen to this awesome choir sing, and we sing these songs together. And we’re together in a room where the sound is amazing is because it feeds the fire within us. Now I don’t want us to be a consumer church where you only come to get, we’re coming to worship, to offer ourselves to God. But I’m not naïve enough to believe that you don’t come, and part of my job, part of our job with this amazing choir is to feed the fire within you. To keep it aflame, to fan it into flame.
One of the reasons we want 2000 people in Bible study and community by the end of 2017 is because Bible study is substantive fuel for the fire. It doesn’t burn super-fast, it’s good hard wood that will keep that fire burning longer within you. Feed the fire.
I’m going to share with you an illustration and I’ll use it again in two weeks but it’s so important to me that you get it that I’ll use it twice. Our mission statement is that we are one family in Jesus, putting faith to work in love and the second part – putting faith to work in love – comes from Galatians 5:6. Paul says, “Neither circumcision or uncircumcision matter.” In other words religion doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is faith working in love. And there are two parts then – faith and working in love.
I want you to think about an automobile. It has an engine and has a transmission and the transmission is that “working in love” part but the engine is faith. That’s the fire within us, that’s our love of God in Christ. You can’t just be all about the business of giving, giving, giving and not open yourself up to receive the presence and power of God on the other end. You have to feed the fire.
So much of what the church is about… that’s what’s different between us and other charities. Yes, we want to put that faith to work in love, we want to do things; we want to muck out houses, and help rebuild, and feed the hungry. That’s so important. But part of our job is to feed the fire that drives those things. For you to get that fire alive that will keep you pushing when everyone else wants to quit. Rekindle the fire within you.
Here’s the third thing Paul says. “For God did not give us a spirit of fear or cowardice or timidity but a spirit of power and love and of self-discipline.” He goes on, “Join me in suffering for the Gospel relying on the power of God.”
One of my favorite New Testament stories is when Jesus… I’ve been studying these storm times – and it’s the story of the disciples that go out on a boat. They’ve just fed the multitudes, Jesus steps away for a time of prayer. He sends the disciples in a boat on over to the other side. The winds come up. A storm blows them into the center of the lake, over the deepest part called “the abyss.” As they’re over the abyss and the waves are great, Jesus appears to them walking on the water. They think it’s a ghost, a spirit that has come up from this abyss which is the entryway to the deep, the underworld.
They think it’s a ghost and he tells them, “Take heart, it is I don’t be afraid.” And Peter says – and I think this is an interesting phrase – “If it’s you, Lord, tell me to come out on the water.” Frankly, I don’t know if I’d say that. I would say, “If it’s you, Lord, tell us how to be safe.” But no, Peter knew the character of Jesus and Jesus said to him, “Step out on the water.” So Peter steps out on the water and immediately fear takes over and he begins to sink. He cries out to Jesus, “Rescue me!” And Jesus reaches out, takes his hand and rescues him.
John Ortberg has written a book based on the story. It’s called If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of the Boat. You have to step out, and do something where you can’t rely on your own power. You can only rely on the power of God at work within you. A spirit of love, and of power and of self-control.
If you want to operate out of fear and anxiety and shame you’re going to stay in the boat and you’re going to hunker down. But if you want to operate out of a spirit of love and power you have to step out of the boat.
My son-in-law Andrew Cobble has worked for a major oil company for many years and it’s had him on international travel. He travels around the world and has lots of times on airplanes. So maybe a year and a half ago, my daughter sent a text message to the family that said, “Andrew’s finished his first book.” We were surprised, thinking, “We didn’t know he was writing a book.”
But he was writing a book. It’s a fantasy book, The Game of Thrones kind of stuff. Swords and armor and things like that – a fantasy. We’re thinking, “That’s a neat little hobby he’s got.”
Then after a while there was another book, a second book and then there was a third book. I thought, “Wow!” It was about a month ago when he announced at a family dinner that he’d quit his job.
Now the “back in the boat” part of me said, “He did what?” The answer was, “Yeah, he quit his job. He’s going to be an author.” Okay, I thought, “What about insurance?” The answer was, “Well, we’ll have to figure out the insurance part.” I said, “Oh, good, you’re going to have to figure out the insurance part.”
I said, “So the good news is that if it doesn’t go well, Coatney, you and the boys can come live with us. I don’t know where Andrew is going to go but you and the boys will be welcome to come live with us. You can stay in our boat.”
Now look, here’s what I’ll tell you. I cannot tell you how proud I am that somebody would have a dream and then decide “I’m going for it. I’m tired of being away from my family for days and weeks at a time. I can do this and I’m just going to step out of the boat and we’ll see what happens.”
I texted Andrew and said, “Is it okay if I use this story in the sermon?” He said, “Sure, just mention that the books make great Christmas gifts and should you want them for family and friends there’s a series of three.” A.C. Cobble is the author’s name.
So anyway, look, it might not be something big like that. It might be something small. Maybe you thought, “You know, maybe I could teach a Sunday school class. Naw – I couldn’t do that!” But step out of the boat and teach a Sunday school class. Maybe you think, “I could work at C.C.S.C. and connect with people I don’t ordinarily get a chance to talk to. People who have real needs, who are really hurting.” Or you might say, “I’m going to go out to the Gethsemane campus and work with our refugees there.” Or, “I’m going to audition for our Tapestry Players production.” Or, “I’m going to decide to sing in the choir.”
I don’t know what it is – what you’ve been nudged to do but you always say, “Naaa…” Put that spirit of fear behind you and get out of the boat. Take hold of the spirit of power and love and self-discipline.
All right, one last component which is really important and that’s that getting out of the boat means just getting through the day.
Here’s one thing John Ortberg writes in his book: “It’s hard enough to get out of the boat when the wind is calm and the water is smooth, but in life that’s rarely the case. Sooner or later the storm strikes, in your marriage, your work, your ministry, your finances, or your health. It is in the act of facing the storm that you discover what lies inside you. Storms have a way of teaching what nothing else can.”
Man, we have learned that! That there are times when all you’re trying to do is just make it. And you realize that you have to count on that spirit of love and power and self-discipline.
Bill Brunson is a United Methodist pastor. He started seminary when he was 22, got married and a year and a half later they had a little girl. A year after that his wife was diagnosed with leukemia and she passed away when he was 26, on Easter before he graduated from seminary. Here’s what he writes as he remembers: “There were times I felt I was going to drown. Throughout all that when the waves would be highest and fear and anger and so much more would crash against me and even over me. I would always be reminded that I am not alone. And more times than I can count when I thought ‘I can’t do this – I just can’t do this anymore’ I would suddenly feel, not hear, but feel ‘We can do this together.’ Then I’d take the next step and move forward into the next day. How I wish the storm would never have come, but I have no doubt that His presence in my boat calmed the winds and waves and never let me drown.”
Friends, I just urge you to put aside all the shame and fear, quit knocking yourself down. Because God has called you. God has called you to a holy purpose, a holy life and has given you everything you need to accomplish that. So get out of the boat and give it a try.
Gracious God, we thank you for your presence, and we pray that you would continue to strengthen us. Take away our destructive habits, our spirit of fear, and of shame. And pour into us the spirit of power and love and self-discipline. Amen.