Letters to Timothy – Good Practical Advice:
Do Something That Matters
by Dr. Tom Pace
May 15, 2016
2 Timothy 1:8-14

Today is Pentecost Sunday, and that’s the day we remember the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. We see the red and the flames. And the Scripture we heard also speaks of flames as a fire resting on each of the apostles as the Holy Spirit came and turned a group of disciples into the Body of Christ. Just like God breathed the Holy Spirit into Adam’s nostrils, and he became a living being, so this group of disciples had the Holy Spirit breathed into them, and they became the Body of Christ.
So today we’re continuing our series on Practical Wisdom or practical advice that we find in Paul’s letters to Timothy. And today we talk about what the Holy Spirit empowers us to do. So listen and keep your bulletin insert out, because I’ll be dealing with it directly in my sermon.

Do not be ashamed then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on 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. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
- 2 Timothy 1:8-14 (NRSV)

Two weeks ago we talked about the practical advice of focusing on character, not on success. We pointed at David Brooks’ distinction between resume values and eulogy values. Are you working to build things for your resume or are you working to build things they’ll talk about when you die? Your character. That character which is the center of what we’re trying to build.
Last week we talked about relationships, that they are organic and need to be tended, to be cultivated. Otherwise they’ll wither and die. Today I want us to talk about a sense of mission, the practical advice that Paul writes to young Timothy in Ephesus. He says, “Do something that matters. Be about something.” And he’s specific about it.
Let’s pray together. Lord, open us up. Open our eyes that we might see, our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts that we might feel. Then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
There’s an old preacher’s story that I’ve always liked. You’ve probably heard it but I think it speaks to our situation. It’s about a tightrope walker at the circus who also had a lavaliere mike on, a radio mike, so he could talk to the crowd. He would talk to the crowd, kind of get them going as he walked back and forth across the tightrope. And on one side of the tightrope there was a wheelbarrow. So he said, “How many of you believe I can put this wheelbarrow on this tightrope and walk across?” Everybody raised their hands, and said, “I believe you can do it! Yes, you can do it!” He said, “All right, then I need a volunteer who will get in the wheelbarrow.”
Sort of an old corny story but it makes quite a point. There’s a difference between believing something and believe believing it, between believing it and really believing it. There’s a difference between believing something and really committing to something.
Pastor Steven Furtick at Elevation Church has a story about this. He said that his family wanted him to get a dog. This really spoke to my heart. He goes on to say that there’s a difference between the idea of a dog and the reality of a dog. The idea of a dog is wonderful. It’s snuggly and fun. They greet you when you come home with slippers at the end of the day. They go get the paper in the rain and all those things. Dogs are awesome.
Then there’s the reality of a dog … when the kids say, “Oh, I want a dog!” Of course you want a dog. You don’t have to pay for the dog, the vet bills. We have a boxer dog that is now worth $350,000. I haven’t actually done the math, but it’s got to be close to that. The food … “She has a sensitive stomach,” so the food costs $90 a bag. Nine, zero for a bag of little chunky dog food. My goodness! And surgeries – and chemotherapy…
Of course the idea of a dog is awesome. You add to that the walking, the feeding and the things they tear up in your house. Even after I have spent that much money on that dog she still tears up pillows if you leave her in there very long. So there’s a difference between a concept and a commitment.
Paul writes: “Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on 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.”
So I call this our general calling. We have a calling to be the light and salt in the world, to show the whole world the love of Christ. We have a calling to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world around us.
It’s a wonderful calling, isn’t it? Doesn’t the idea of that sound wonderful? You smile at everybody, you pass them in the hallway and say, “God bless you.” And they say, “God bless you” back. You just share the love of God with everyone you meet, and it’s so wonderful.
“Join with me in suffering for the gospel,” because there’s a difference between the idea of being a Christian and the reality, between the concept and the commitment.
Sometimes we have in our mind, and I think it’s the American gospel that has been saying this to us all the time, that Jesus died on the cross, so we don’t have to. Jesus died on the cross as a substitution for our sins, so therefore we don’t have to. But that’s not what the gospel says. Over and over again Jesus says, “If you want to be a disciple, pick up your cross and follow me. Those who want to gain their life lose their life for my sake.” There’s a commitment and there will be suffering. You give yourself to it fully.
Paul’s supposed to be writing to encourage Timothy. Why would he say that? “Join with me in suffering for the gospel.” What kind of marketing plan is that? Why would someone say, “Okay, sign me up?”
But you know what? We do say that. We do. And here’s why. Because down at our core it tugs at something. And it says, “You know what? I want my life to be about something that matters. I want in my life to have something that matters enough that I’m willing to suffer and die for it.” Because the truth is if there’s nothing that we’re willing to suffer and die for, then there’s nothing we’re really willing to live for either. And it takes hold of that part within us that says, “You know what? I don’t want to just wander around throughout my life not giving it to anything, not suffering for anything, not doing anything that matters, just spending my life sort of enjoying every day and every moment that comes along, because life is a smorgasbord.” We’re called on to do something, to be about something, to have a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. “Join with me in suffering for the gospel.” Then he goes on. Jump down with me to verse 11 if you’re reading along. He says, “For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,¹²and for this reason I suffer as I do.”
So not only is there a general calling that we are to have a commitment to follow Christ, but there is a specific calling, an appointment if you will. I love the word appointment because as a United Methodist I was appointed here to be your pastor. I was not called by the church. You didn’t call me and say, “Hey we want you to be our pastor.” The Bishop sent me here and said, “You’re their pastor. I appoint you there. They’re your people, that’s your parish. You go serve.”
Each of us has an appointment. I was reading a book that someone pointed out to me. I was intrigued mostly by the title. It’s the story of a man named Chris Guillebeau who decided he was going in his life to every country in the world. One hundred ninety-six countries he went to. So he did it. And in the midst of it … let me read to you what he wrote and then tell you the title … he said, “I wasn’t the only one on a quest. All over the world people had discovered the same way of bringing greater purpose to their life. Some had been toiling away at a goal for years without any recognition. Going for it – whatever it was – was simply something they found meaningful and loved to do.”
It is something that you find meaningful, a specific purpose. So the title of the book is The Happiness of Pursuit. I just love that. Not the pursuit of happiness, but the happiness of pursuit. It’s when we have something that matters to us so much that we care about it that much that we’re going to really give ourselves to it. A specific sense of a calling. Of an appointment if you will.
It might be something big. I have a friend who is so committed. He wants more than anything for every child in the world – he thinks big – for every child in the world to have a quality education no matter what their circumstances or economics are. Every child. And he said, “I give myself to it fully.” I will tell you something. He doesn’t care who he makes mad. He doesn’t care who he offends. He doesn’t care how much it’s going to cost him. He doesn’t care how hard he’s going to work. He doesn’t care how long it’s going to take. He gives himself to it fully and believes in it with all his heart. And he’ll say, “I’m going to die trying to do this. I know it. This is what matters to me.”
Or it might be something small. There’s a great movie called “Stranger than Fiction” about a woman who… it’s really about Will Farrell… but in the midst of it there’s a woman who’s a Harvard law student, and she was spending more of her time thinking about what snacks to bring to study group than about her studying. She would bring all these fancy snacks, and the study group grew to 27 people because of the food she brought. So she dropped out of school and became a bakery chef. She said, “I realized I could really make people happy around me.”
The smallest bone in the body is the stapes. It’s a tiny little bone in the middle of the human ear. The largest bone is the femur. But both are essential if the body is going to function. Both big passions and little passions matter if the body of Christ is going to function. So find something to do that matters to you. It might be something that feels life-changing, that feels like it changes the world. Or it might just change a tiny little circle of people around you. But find something that you feel is your appointment and give yourself to it fully.
Paul says, “I have been appointed a herald and a teacher and an apostle.” It goes on to say that following this calling, this appointment happens when we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit. Here’s verse 8: “Join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.” Or at the end, “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”
If we try and accomplish that to which we find ourselves called, to pursue our appointment on our own power and strength we will find ourselves disillusioned, dissatisfied, exhausted. But if we rely on the power of God there’s a certain sense that God comes alongside us and continues to lift us up and fill us up and encourage us.
A few years ago our family went on a vacation, and we went on a whitewater rafting trip. They give you a little speech before whitewater rafting. You may have done this. They tell you how to wear your life vest and how you’re supposed to paddle and all that stuff. Then they say, “If you fall out of the boat, don’t try and swim across the current. Put your feet below you, try and keep your feet downstream so you don’t hit the rocks. You can fend off the rocks. And let the current ultimately take you to the side, and it will. Then you’ll be able to climb out. You can kind of try and move sideways, but don’t try and swim cross the current.” Some of you who go to the Gulf, they tell you not to try and swim against the riptide. Move sideways with it. And it’s the same deal.
You can’t swim against the Holy Spirit. You can’t move against it. You’ll never get there. But if you move into the current... instead of saying, “God please bless what I’m doing...” you say, “God, what are you doing? Let me be a part of that. Let me move into your current,” Then you’ll be amazed at what happens.
Finally, there’s one more piece of it, and I think it’s a marvelous summary. Listen to the symmetry here, because I think it’s so great. So in the end of verse 12 Paul says, “I am not ashamed for I know the one in whom I have put my trust. And I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” Then here’s the flip side of it. This is verse 14 where Paul writes to Timothy, “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you with the help of the Holy Spirit living in you.”
So you see the symmetry there? It says that God trusts us with the treasure, our mission, God’s mission, God’s purpose, God’s grace. He entrusts us with that. And what do we do in response? We trust God back. God says to us, “If you will commit yourself to this fully then I will step in and make sure it comes to pass. It might not be in your lifetime, but I’ll make sure it comes to pass. This is my work, this is my purpose, and this is my mission. I’ll make sure it comes to pass. You step in fully, that’s your part of the job. You commit yourself to it fully, and I will commit myself to you to making sure it comes to pass.”
When I was in high school my stepfather and I had this conversation. We had a big lake behind our house, and I wanted there to be a dock on it. My friends could come over, we could jump off it, and we could swim. The bottom of the lake was that nasty, funky stuff so I wanted to get out there further where we could swim. So he said, “Well, build one.” And I said, “Build a dock? I’m fourteen. Cut me some slack.” He said, “You want a dock, you build one.” I said, “I don’t know how to build a dock.” And he said, “I’ll tell you what. You start drawing it up and everything, and I’ll help. You build it, and I’ll make sure that it works.”
So that’s what we did. It took us a summer, but we built a dock. The truth was that I built a dock. He came after I would be gone and fixed the things I’d messed up. I’d work on it, and I’d come back. Then I’d say, “I don’t remember putting that there. That’s way better. I see that.” It would float on 360 milk jugs. So we started saving milk jugs, and we got 360 of them, and the dock sits this way, and the milk jugs go up underneath it with the mouths facing down. And each one of them will hold 8 pounds and you get 360 of them, and they’ll hold a lot of weight. It was awesome, a floating dock.
I could never have done that on my own. But his comment was, “You give yourself to it fully. I’ll make sure it works.”
I think that’s what God says to us. He says, “Look, this is my deal. I’ve appointed you to a mission, given you a calling. You give yourself to it fully. I’ll make sure it works. I trust you. You trust me.”
I don’t know if you know who W.H. Murray was. He was a prisoner of war during World War II in Italy for three years. He was a Scotsman and a famous mountain climber. Probably the most famous mountain climber of his day. He wrote a book, an autobiography called The Evidence of Things Not Seen: A Mountaineer’s Tale. That’s a quote from Hebrews I believe. But I want you to listen to what he writes, because I think it’s powerful. He says, “Until one is committed there is hesitancy. The chance to draw back always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. So begin it now.”
Let’s pray. God, we do believe that you call us to do something that matters, and we want to live a life of meaning and purpose. We want to give ourselves fully to something, to be willing to suffer for it even, so that we might also be willing to live for it. God, we ask that you would show us what it is that you have for us to do whether it’s small or big. And then give us the courage to commit. In Christ’s name. Amen.