2 Timothy 2:1-26
With two teenagers in our house we’ve been talking a lot about driver’s licenses lately. It’s one of the rite of passages from childhood to adulthood in American culture: Navigating the soul-numbing process of going down to the DMV, taking the written test, of course, followed by the driving test with that serious-looking man checking stuff off on his clipboard as you weave through the cones, demonstrate the proper use of a turn signal and attempt the nerve-wracking feat of parallel parking in three moves or less.
Getting a driver’s license can be a trying experience. One man reports that after spending 3½ hours enduring the long lines, surly clerks and insane regulations at the Department of Motor Vehicles, he stopped at a sporting goods store to pick up a gift for his son, who had just started playing in a T-ball baseball league for little kids. He saw a nice bat, and took it to the cash register.
“Cash or charge?” the clerk asked.
“Cash,” the irritated dad snapped. Then, apologizing for his rudeness, he explained, “I’ve spent the afternoon at the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“Shall I giftwrap the bat?” the clerk asked sweetly. “Or are you going back there?”
After all that hassle, if you’re lucky, you get a shiny new driver’s license (complete with bad hair day picture) that demonstrates that you’re barely competent to get behind the wheel, to get on the streets and get stuck in traffic with the rest of humanity.
But while the coveted driver’s license is usually the first license we earn, for most of us it’s certainly not the last. Depending on the profession in which you work, the recreational pastimes you love or even the software you put on your computer, chances are that you will accumulate enough licenses over your lifetime to fill a file cabinet. Just think about some of the more common licenses that you might need:
– A fishing or hunting license allows you to stand in a freezing stream or sit in a frozen tree stand and not see a thing all day.
– Software licenses that allow you to pay for the privilege of using your computer.
– Business licenses allow you the privilege of paying taxes on your hard-earned paycheck.
– A license for your dog or cat allows you the privilege of paying the veterinarian for Fluffy’s shots.
– A seat license for season tickets to your local sports franchise allows you the privilege of paying for the right to the seat even before you pay for the actual tickets.
– A marriage license in order to get hitched, and you have to make sure that the person who performs the ceremony also has a license.
The list goes on and on. Some cities license everything from babysitters to panhandlers to garage sales. Any other licenses out there that we haven’t covered?
Sure, having to have all those licenses can be a nuisance sometimes, but there’s also a good reason for them. You wouldn’t want to buy lunch from some dude with no food handlers’ license who’s selling sushi out of the trunk of his car, for example. (Okay, you wouldn’t want to buy lunch from some dude who’s selling sushi out of the trunk of his car, even if he does have a license.) You wouldn’t want an unlicensed plumber to show up and reroute your sewage pipes, nor would you want an unlicensed lawyer handling the liability case when said sewage pipes accidentally flood your neighbor’s basement. You wouldn’t want a teacher spending six hours a day with your kid who can’t explain the function or meaning of pi, would you?
Licenses demonstrate that we’re at least recognized and approved by some official agency as being technically competent to work or recreate safely and effectively.
Our one life is full of those approvals. But is there a license for living a life of faith? Are there certain markers that indicate that we’re using our one life to the fullest for God?
In this week’s passage, the apostle Paul sounds a lot like a licensing agent when he writes to Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”
What does a Christian worker need to be working on in order to get God’s stamp of approval? Now, we’re not talking about earning salvation here—like we said last week, that’s a gift–but we are talking about the criteria for becoming an effective Christian disciple who uses his or her one life to represent God and do God-authorized work for the kingdom.
Paul gives Timothy a list of criteria for licensure as a God-approved worker, and each of these criteria can speak to us about what effective Christian faith looks like. We’re not just to shoot for the bare minimum requirements, but we are to work at maximizing each of these traits in our lives. I encourage you to follow along with me through chapter two here as we look at the manual:
Proclaiming the gospel
Proclaiming the gospel (v. 8). One of the key criteria in being an approved follower of Jesus is proclaiming and living the good news about him in the midst of a broken world. “Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, a descendant of David — that is my gospel,” writes Paul. There are lots of different gospels out there, from the social gospel to what Dallas Willard calls “the gospel of sin management.” The good news for Paul and early Christians, however, was centered on Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his vindication as the world’s true king, the ultimate “descendant of David” whose kingdom challenges the kingdoms of this world. This is the gospel that got Paul thrown in prison and beaten repeatedly — not just a “doing a little good” gospel or a “get ready for heaven” gospel, but the gospel that proclaimed Christ’s authority over and against rulers and powers of this world. Paul was “chained like a criminal” for preaching Jesus as Lord, but he knew that despite the accompanying hardships he went through, “the word of God is not chained” (v. 9). The gospel transforms the world, and that doesn’t come easily. When we spend our one life for the gospel, we are proclaiming an alternate reality—the reality of God’s kingdom. It’s a gospel that challenges much of what the world values, and it will cause us to not only speak but to live in different ways, ways that will require us to practice endurance, which is Paul’s second point here. .
Practicing endurance
Practicing endurance (v. 3-7, 10-13). When our one life is lived for the purposes of God and proclaiming the gospel, then our lives will inevitably involve sacrifice and suffering. Paul gives three examples of those who suffer in order to achieve a purpose: Soldiers, athletes, farmers. Each must put in the work and endure hardship in order to achieve their purpose. Paul says that he suffers hardship for the gospel, but he endures that suffering so that others may know Christ. This is the call of the disciple and it involves hard work and perseverance.
Paul spells this out a little more in verses 10-13. Being a disciple of Jesus requires a great deal of endurance in the face of a world that is going in a very different direction. Paul endured every hardship because he was focused on bringing people to God (v. 10). The “saying” in verses 11-13 lays out the endurance of faith and the grace of God that enables us to continue despite our failures and, sometimes, our faithlessness. When we die with Christ (baptismal image) we are raised to live a new life — a life that “reigns” with Christ as he reigns over the world (v. 12). The Christian life is not easy and we will struggle, but Paul reminds us that God is always faithful.
When we become followers of Jesus, we will always spend our lives swimming against the cultural current. We need each other to help us endure, to remind each other that there is another way in the world—the Jesus way. The goal of our one life isn’t to simply “go with the flow,” it’s to flow in the direction of the waters of our baptism, which marks us as people approved by God’s love and grace.
Avoiding stupid arguments
Avoiding stupid arguments (vv. 14, 16, 23). Christians are notorious for engaging in stupid arguments about minor points in the faith. Paul tells Timothy that an approved Christian worker doesn’t get into “wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening” (v. 14). Such arguments can lead to “profane chatter” that leads people to be less than Christian (v. 16). We get into arguments over doctrine and polity, modes of baptism, ways to serve the sacraments and to whom — indeed, Christians are some of the most contentious people in the world sometimes. Rather than fighting, Paul urges Timothy to correct opponents with gentleness so that “God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth” (v. 25).
This is a good thing for us to remember because our whole culture seems to be filled with stupid arguments. Just flick on your radio or TV or jump on social media and you’ll see that people are spending a lot of their time venting about things they actually know very little about. There’s no dialogue, no charity, no deference, no listening deeply to the other. It’s like this meme I saw on Facebook lately from someone who actually gets it:
“Your political Facebook post totally changed my mind!” Said no one, ever.
Instead, Paul says, we need to be talking about things that really matter. Licensed, God-approved Christian workers constantly focus on important things like the gospel, the kingdom and the word of God. That leads us to the central trait of the approved Christian worker:
Rightly explaining the word of truth
Rightly explaining the word of truth (v. 15). The “approved” worker (which means “tried and tested” in the Greek) is qualified by the constant trying, testing and wrestling with the truth of God as he or she studies the Scriptures and tests them out in his or her own life. The word “explain” here comes from the root word “orthos” which means to make straight (our English words “orthopedist” and “orthodontist” have their origins in this word — one who makes bones or teeth straight and, by the way, also needs a license!). An approved Christian worker is always cutting through the junk that keeps people from following the basics of the gospel by straightening out the crooked and confusing ways that the gospel of Jesus’ resurrection and lordship gets twisted. Licensed Christian workers, then, are those who devote a great deal of time to prayer and studying Scripture as a means of constantly honing their knowledge and love of God and God’s Word. The truth of God’s Word and the power of the gospel enables them to endure and “keep the main thing the main thing.”
Pursuing Purity
Pursuing purity (vv. 20-22). Paul switches metaphors here, saying that just like a kitchen contains many different utensils — some for special use and some that are merely ordinary — all of them can do their jobs if they are clean. Indeed, all of them will become “special utensils, dedicated and useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good work” (vv. 20-21). The point of being a God approved Christian worker isn’t for ourselves, it’s for the work of the Lord, to be used by him for divine purposes. In order that we might be used, we have to be clean. We “shun youthful passions” (which are also temptations for the not-so-young) and instead pursue the purity of “righteousness, faith, love and peace” and “call on the Lord from a pure heart” (v. 22). Our Old Testament lesson this morning boils it down even more: What does the Lord require of you? What are the requirements for licensure? “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” The license of faith we receive isn’t just something we carry secretly in our pockets, it’s something that shines through us as followers of Christ.
John Wesley was very big on making sure that the people called Methodist were working on these things on a daily basis. In his sermon “The Character of a Methodist” he gives a similar list to that of Paul, but he also added the overall goal of living like this, of being people who are “approved by God.” That goal for Wesley was “holiness of heart and life” which he defined as “inward and outward conformity in all things to the will of God.” For Wesley, love for God and love for neighbor were the inward and outward markers of holiness.. The gifts we talked about last week and the markers of God-approved workers we just looked at are all aimed at the same goal—deepening our love for God and for others. Jesus said this was the greatest commandment, the greatest stamp of approval on those who would follow him: That they love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love their neighbor as themselves. The goal of this love, as Wesley put it, is to be “shed abroad” in the hearts of God’s people through the gift of the Holy Spirit within them. Our license isn’t for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the world!
You know, every few years or so licenses need to be renewed. That’s the time we get the refresher course and we look at how we’ve used the license in the past and what we can improve. The same is true for God-approved workers. How are you doing at “shedding abroad” the love of God through your words and actions? How have you proclaimed the gospel in word and deed? Where are you practicing endurance in your life for the sake of Christ? Are you being sucked into stupid arguments, or are you content to only speak the truth in love? Are you immersed in the Scriptures daily, being straightened out by the word of truth? Are you pursuing purity in your life, making sure that you are washed from the stain of sin and then able to be used by God for his glory?
That’s about as important a licensing test as I can think of! We need each other in order to pass it and keep these skills current. That’s why God has given us the church, the training ground for a lifetime of loving and serving God and neighbor.
Following Christ requires us to continue to work on these skills as part of God’s overall plan for changing us so that we can participate with God in changing the world. No trip to the DMV is necessary, just a daily focus on doing our best for God and the mission to which we are called!
May your one life be a God-approved one!
