1 Timothy 1:12-17
I
was called to ministry when I was 13. I look at Cidra now as she is 11. I was
just two years older than she is. I cannot help but think about exactly at how
young I was. I am amazed at how God must have been working in my young life,
for me to have been so willing and obedient at such a young age. 13 is so
young. So many things going on in a 13 year olds’ life, so much turmoil, so man
changes, so much uncertainty about life and so many other things. Somehow, God
got through all that, and I was able to hear God’s voice, when God spoke to me.
God is really truly an awesome God, to have been able to speak to a 13 year old
in such a way that she would understand and respond.
But,
I want to go back to an evening a few months before that day, I had gone during
a district winter retreat. We had just finished up an evening chapel service
and I sat in my chair and cried, while asking God to take all of me, to take my
life, my present, my past and my future, all my unknown days, who I was and who
I was becoming. The speaker had spoken about this and I knew that is what I
wanted. I told God that I did not just want to have God in my life, but I
wanted everything I desired to be what God desired, for me, for those around
me, for everything.
I
was 13, I had attended Nazarene Church practically since I was born. I had gone
to Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services as long as I
can remember. I had always been surrounded by saved and sanctified Nazarenes. My
parents were the kind of parents who got us to Church whenever there was
something there for us. I have heard about holiness and sanctification for as
long as I can remember.
When
it came down to it, I did not realized what God was doing in me that evening, I
did not walk away that evening thinking about sanctification or holiness, I
just knew God had done something amazing in me and I was perfectly happy,
perfectly content knowing that all things were really and truly right between
myself and God. It was not until I looked back on it several months later, when
someone asked me about sanctification that I was able to say, “Yes, yes I am
and that is when it happened.” I tell you this because I believe that if
I had not given God everything; if I had not given over to God all my
tomorrows, all my hopes, all my dreams, all my fears; if as a frightened 13
year-old who could barely comprehend her place in this world had not handed all
that over to God that day, three months later I would not have been able to
hear the call God placed on my heart.
I
am still amazed to this day, that God would call me, my 13 year-old self was
astounded and to this day, I am amazed that at the call God has placed on my
life. What is even more amazing, when God called me to be a preacher, is I
said, “Yes.” The only reason I see that made this possible was that I had given
myself over wholly to God, so if God wanted me to do this, I could. Now don’t
get me wrong, it is not like I knew from that minute on that someday I would be
here doing this. It is a long road from being 13 to pastoring. Years of
exploring what it was God was calling me to do, a time period when I was
certain I was called to youth ministry and a deep longing to be called to the
mission field but in the end, God showed me my true call was to pastoral
ministry. Between being 13 and now, there were five years of middle and high
school, four years of college and four years of seminary, two years of pastoral
ministry before I was ordained. And that
was 12 years ago. A lot of journeying has taken me from there to here. But, it
began with a call to holiness, a call to give it all to God.
Paul
in this passage speaks of being thankful to Jesus Christ for giving him
strength, in fact he ends this passage with a snippet of a short hymn of
praise, a sort of doxology, which gives glory and honor to God for the way God
had worked in his life. Paul is able to give God thanks and praise because Paul
sees the way God has worked in his life. His testimony is his praise, he pauses
and acknowledges the work God has done for him and through him. Paul sees who
he was and sees who is and knows that all the strength he found to be the
person God was calling him to be was found in the grace and mercy of a God who
takes sinners and transforms them and their lives.
The
strength of which Paul speaks in this passage comes from living a live given
wholly and completely over to Jesus Christ. At this point in his ministry, when
he writes this letter to Timothy, Paul is in jail, he is not certain but the
end is near, as he writes, he does it as a father to a son, a mentor to his
mentee, wanting to impart, to pass on important knowledge and understanding
about the faith. Pastoral epistles in general are instructions about the
Church, given to instruct and guide the Church, Paul is imparting this kind of
pastoral knowledge to Timothy. He wants Timothy to know that his ministry the
work he has been doing is found only in the strength found in living wholly and
completely for Jesus Christ.
Paul
can trust the his future, no matter how uncertain it may be, and the future of
the churches he has planted, because he knows that all the work he has done is
not his work, that he is not entrusting all he had done to Timothy and
others like him, but he is entrusting the Church to the ONE to whom the Church
ultimately belongs, Jesus Christ. He has
lived his life given completely over to God, he has already given all the unknowns
over to God, he knows that God can be trusted and is trustworthy in all things.
He is calling for Timothy to live likewise, to find his strength in Jesus
Christ, entrusting all the tomorrows and all the unknowns over to a God who IS
trustworthy in all things.
Paul’s
life, ministry and work, serve as an example to all of us what God can do in a
person’s life. His life shows us what holiness looks like in action, what it
looks like to truly trust all of your days, allow God to take a hold of all of
your life, past, present and future, all of the unknowns that are and will
come, everything. That is how Paul lived. Paul gained strength in Jesus
Christ because he had given himself completely over to God, he allowed God to
shape and change him so completely that Paul’s life and ministry became the
life and ministry we now know. Paul’s strength is found in holy living, giving
all his days, all his hopes, fears, dreams, tomorrows and all the unknowns that
are and are to come over to God. Holiness is living wholly and absolutely for
God. It is about allowing God’s desires in all things to be your desires. This
thing we Nazarenes call Sanctification is living so that each and every day of
your life is shaped and changed by God, so that your strength is found in God
and God alone and who you are and are becoming is because of God’s grace and
mercy overflowing in you and at work in all you do. And it is to this life to
which Paul is pointing in this passage. This is the grace and mercy. This is
what is overflowing. This life is what gives him strength, it is the work of
God at work sanctifying Paul’s life creating in him and through him the holy
life we see exemplified in scriptures.
Paul
sites what his life was like before Jesus Christ, Paul calls himself a, “blasphemer,
a persecutor, and a man of violence,” he reminds us of who he was before, so
that we could always know that we too can live victoriously as Paul did. Paul
was not some kind of person of amazing faith. He was the person who held the
coats of other men while they stoned Stephen, to death. He was on his way to
Damascus to persecute Christians when God got a hold of his life. God stopped
Paul in his tracks, and because of Paul’s encounter with Jesus Christ on that
Damascus road, Paul gave his life over to Jesus Christ and the Church as we
know has never been the same. Paul’s strength is found in his utter devotion to
Jesus Christ.
God
does amazing things when we give ourselves completely and utterly over to God.
Lives lived in this manner reflected the amazing strength of which Paul speaks.
Blasphemers become founders of the church and 13 year-olds become preachers.
Paul
can look back and see the strength in his life, I can look back at my life and
see God at work. Each and every one of us should be able to look back and see
how God’s mercy, love and grace have overflowed toward us strengthening us. We
all like Paul should see our lives as testimonies to the strength which God
gives. We all should be able to join with Paul and give thanks and praise to
the one who raise us and changed us and gave us new life, who gave us strength
to be the people God called us and is calling us to be.
This
passage is just as much about sharing the testimony of what has been done in us
and through us, for which we all have reason to be grateful and for which each
of us can give God which belongs solely to God, as it is hope that God will
continue to be our strength, hope that the love and mercy which has thus far
overflowed up on us will continue.
Paul
is in jail, there are so many unknowns. Will he die? (He is pretty sure the
answer to that one is, “Yes”) When will he die? Who will carry on his work and
his ministry? Is he leaving his churches in trustworthy hands? Will the church
fail? This might not seem to be in doubt as we look back over two thousand
years in which the Church has flourished, but at this time, this was a
legitimate fear, the future of the new Church was yet to be seen. Would it
survive the to the next generation? (as question we always seem to be asking)
But, Paul could testify to the work God had done in him and through him. He was
grateful to the mercy and love, which had overflowed to him, he knew the
strength which could only be found in living the holy life, to which God called
him. He had given all the unknowns, all his hopes, all his dreams, . . .all his
fears over to God. He knew God would not fail, that God’s mission was to seek
and save the lost and that as long as Christians like Timothy, like you and
like me continued to live Holy lives completely given over to God, that the
future of the Church was assured in this and this alone, God’s people living
Godly lives.
The
call of this passage is to Holy living. The call of this passage is to stand up
and give grateful testimony to the who allows for us to live holy lives. I have
shared the testimony of this pastor and the 13 year-old girl whom I once was.
What is your testimony? What grateful testimony of the work God has done in you
and through you? In what way can you stand up today and give god the glory and
honor and praise for who it is God shaping and forming you to be?
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