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"Faithfulness
In Season and Out of Season" July
20, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will
Eisenhower Let us pray: Just as we are
without one plea, But that we know
Your Word to be Our life, our light, our liberty,
O Lamb of God, we come. Amen. In June I shared with you that throughout the summer we are going
to, once a month, have a sermon that would lay a foundation for our stewardship
campaign in the fall. And so once
again this morning, we're going to look at an issue that some way or another
ought to shape and direct our response as far as it concerns stewardship and our
involvement in God's Kingdom. Now
this morning we're going to talk about faithfulness in season and out of season.
And I'm going to ask us to think about consistency, about being
consistent. As we do, I want to share a story with you--a story about Kyle and
Eddie. A long time ago when I was a
youth pastor at a church in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the summertime one of those
years, I was a cabin counselor in high school camp. I was responsible for a cabin of high school boys and Kyle
and Eddie were in my cabin. This
was very interesting. I learned
that they had met at summer camp in fourth grade and had become fast friends,
even though they were from different towns.
Once a year they would come back up to this summer camp and once a year
they would get to be summer camp buddies again, and then would go away and
pretty much not see each other for a year.
Well, that started in fourth grade.
Each year, each year, and now they're in eleventh grade.
And now Kyle has started to develop a summer camp relationship with
Debbie Jo Johnson . . . which created difficulties for the Kyle-Eddie
friendship. I began to sort of
observe those difficulties. Late at
night one night in the middle of the week, Kyle came to me and he said,
"Eddie and I are having a problem. Can
we go out of the cabin and just find a quiet place and talk this through?"
And I said, "Sure," which created quite an uproar within the
cabin from all of the other guys (because all of the other guys had been trying
to find ways of sneaking out of the cabin at night in order to scare the girls
by setting the forest on fire. Or
so it seemed to me at the time.) So
I had been very, very adamant, "No, no, no.
You may not go out of the cabin after lights out.
No, you may not. No, you may
not." And now they're saying,
"This isn't fair! Why should
Kyle and Eddie be able to go out after lights-out if we haven't been able to?
This isn't fair! How can you say 'yes' to them?
Why would it be right to say 'yes' to them and 'no' to us?" Now, if you've ever been a cabin counselor, you know the answer to
that question: "Because I said
so." No, it's not simply
because I said so. Yes, there are
reasons why this one instance ought to be an exception.
In the middle of the middle-of-the-night uproar in the cabin, there's no
way to explain why that was always "no" but this is going to be
"yes." If they're saying,
"You're being inconsistent," I'd have to say, "Yeah, that's true.
I'm not being consistent." Though
at a time like that (not that you can explain this) but the person in charge
needs to be able to sense the difference between being less than consistent and
actually being more than consistent. No,
I'm not being consistent. But I'm
not being less than consistent; I'm being more than consistent. Now, if you want to turn with me to 2 Timothy, we're going to look
at this morning's passage. I want
to ask us about learning to be consistent and to be more than consistent.
And we're going to begin at the beginning of 2 Timothy, chapter 4, where
we read this: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the
living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly
urge you: proclaim the message; be
persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and
encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound
doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers
to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and
wander away to myths. As for you,
always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your
ministry fully. As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the
time of my departure has come. I
have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day.
And not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing Now, I'm going to ask us to focus in on just a part of verse 2 from
this. But we do want to recognize
that the section that we're going to look at comes in a context and we've read
the entire context here. Paul is
writing a letter to Timothy. Timothy
has been left as the pastor in charge of the church in Ephesus.
And at this point, Paul is talking to him about preaching the gospel and
he's saying, "Now, preach the gospel persistently whether the time is
favorable or unfavorable." And
the translations that many of us are familiar with say at this point, "in
season and out of season." "Be
ready in season--be urgent, be prepared in season and out of season."
And I want us to look at that in context. Paul is really just talking about, "Be prepared to
preach the gospel," and we can see from the context, "Be prepared to
present God's claims to people in season and out of season, when the time is
favorable and unfavorable, when they're ready to hear the truth and when they're
not ready to hear the truth. Don't
change your message based on what people are prepared to hear.
No. Be persistent in season
and out of season." Now, we want to place the "in season and out of season"
in that context. We want to place
that context within all of what is said in 2 Timothy. We want to place that in the pastoral epistles.
(We put together 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus as a unit because these
are instructions from the apostle Paul to pastors Timothy and Titus about their
responsibilities as shepherds in their congregation.)
And we want to place it in the context of everything that the Scriptures
say. And once we do, we're able to say, "Well, you know what?
Paul is talking about something that preachers need to know, which is
"just go ahead and tell the truth whether people are happy to hear it or
not." But faithfulness in season and out of season is something for
all of us to learn. That's
something we all need to know about. It's
not pastors alone, preachers alone, that need to know how to be responsible and
obedient when times are favorable and when times are unfavorable.
So I'm going to ask us to think together about faithfulness in season and
out of season, remembering, for instance, as an example of the kind of thing I'm
thinking about, remember Joseph in the book of Genesis?
Joseph at one point in his life was very much being faithful, being
obedient "in season," in a favorable time.
He was lifted up by Pharaoh. He
was put in charge of the Egyptian economy.
And God had promised seven "fat years."
Do you remember that? Seven
years of prosperity. Seven years of
abundance. And that's a time where
Joseph is in the very happy circumstance of being able to be responsible, be
obedient, be faithful "in season," in a time when it's easy.
He does the right thing, and look at the rewards!
The abundance is there. Now,
why did he know how to handle that? Well,
it's because prior to that he had learned to be faithful in a time of great
difficulty. He had been in prison.
He had been wrongfully imprisoned and he was imprisoned (if we remember
the story) in such a way that there were times where he had reason to think that
he was going to be released, and then his hopes would be dashed as, no, it would
not come about. So he's had to learn how to be faithful "out of
season," when times are not favorable.
Now he's in the good times, and he's someone that the people can trust
because he has learned to be consistent when it was bad.
Now he's being consistent when it is good and they're looking forward to
(because they have a promise from God) that after the seven fat years, there's
going to come seven lean years. There's
going to be a famine. No longer
will there be abundance. No longer
will the rewards just sort of come pouring in--success and prosperity.
No, there's going to be difficulties coming.
He's going to be faithful in the good times in such a way as to prepare
for the bad times to come. That's
the kind of thing that I want us to think about.
I want us to think about being faithful in season and out of season, and
what that entails. Because there's a difference, really. There are those times when you're in a--forgive me for using
the phrase--a "fat years" period of your life. (Some of us are in "fat years" too often. . .)
But taking in its biblical meaning, those periods where we're faithful
and there's success for it, and there's reward for it, and there's blessing for
it, in a way so that the spiritual blessings are confirmed by the material
blessings, by the applause, by the appreciation.
The signs are there: plus,
plus, plus, plus, plus. Now, there
are other times where we are asked to be faithful where it's not like
that--where, though there are always spiritual rewards, those spiritual rewards
do not get confirmed by material circumstance.
We don't seem to be pleasing people the way that we used to.
We don't get the applause, or the favor, or the esteem, or whatever it
is. And you know what? Sometimes we can't even tell that God is pleased with us, is
blessing us at all. Now, God always
is building into your life (when we feel it and when we don't feel it) God is
always building into our lives strength, better foundation, resources that we're
going to need in the future. God is
always in the business of supporting, encouraging, and enhancing.
But sometimes we can feel it, experience it, and sometimes we can't.
Now, the mature believer is the one who knows how to be faithful in
season and out of season. The
mature believer is the one who knows how to be persistent, whether time is
favorable or unfavorable. Now what's a sign of mature belief, being faithful out of season,
in the lean years? Well, you see,
this is where consistency comes in. You
and I need to learn how and when to just keep plugging away, just do the things
that are right to do, just faithfully follow through and don't worry about the
signs. Don't worry about the
applause. Don't worry about the
rewards. There are times when God
asks us simply to follow through faithfully on what has been set before us.
Now, there are other times where suddenly a new window of
opportunity opens up, a new door opens for ministry or a new opportunity in some
way. Where suddenly now, because
we've learned how to be consistent through the hard times, we're challenged to
not simply be consistent, but to be more than consistent because God is making a
new avenue possible for us to move down. That's
when suddenly we need to be prepared, on the basis of the consistency that has
always been there--and incidentally, I'm just remembering when we were talking
about this at our finance committee meeting the other week.
Tim Griffin said . . .we were talking about laying down a baseline.
And yes, in the lean times, in the hard times, in the difficult times, in
the times where we're being tried and tested, we want there to be a baseline of
consistent faithfulness, of consistent obedience. Now, when God enables us to turn a corner so that now there
are rewards that are being showered on us, blessings that we can
actually--instead of trusting that they're there, we can actually see that
they're there. Now is when we want
to be more than consistent. Now is
when we want to take advantage of this and not become less than consistent, but
move forward down that avenue that God has for us.
Now, here are some lessons out of all of this.
If it's true that the challenge to be persistent when times are favorable
and when times are not favorable--if it's true that that is a challenge for all
of us who are believers and not just preachers--being faithful in season and out
of season--there are some lessons that we need to learn.
One is not to be like those Christians who, when they are in an
unfavorable time, when they are in that lean year period, they decide,
"Well, I guess this is just the way it's always going to be.
I guess that this is just the way that God wants my life to be. I'm having tough times now and, you know what?
I don't think it's ever going to get any better."
Now, what do we become like if we're Christians like that?
That's the religion of lowered expectations. And you and I, when we make that decision ("Well, OK.
Things are bad now and I guess they're just going to stay bad.")
Do you know who we become like? We
become like Donald Duck! Donald
Duck. You know, any little thing
goes wrong and we fly off the handle. And
why do we fly off the handle? It's
because, "OK, I knew something bad was going to come my way and here it
is," and I sort of fly into a rage. Well,
lesson number one is, "Don't be like Donald Duck.
Don't be somebody who decides, based on today's experience, how the rest
of your life is going to go." You
know, "Things are bad now, so I'm just going to assume things are going to
be bad for as far as the eye can see." And, on the opposite end, there are some Christians who, you get in
the fat years, you get in the favorable times, and you go, "Ah, this is it!
I can coast now! Things are
going to be good forever! God is
blessing me right now and I just know it's never going to get any different than
this, so I'm just going to enjoy blessings like this for the rest of my
life." Before we had the sour religion of lowered expectations, and
now here we have the naive religion of unrealistic expectations.
Over there, that made you like Donald Duck.
Over here, it just makes you Goofy!
And there are Christians that are just Goofy!
They're just Goofy because they think, "Hey, God is blessing me
right now and so I really don't need to think responsibly about how to handle
these blessings because maybe some lean years are going to come along.
No, I'm just going to be Goofy. I'm
just going to sort of squander these instead of being shrewd and appropriately,
responsibly obedient, given what God is sending my way right now."
We want to be consistent in the difficult times and we want to be more
than consistent in the good times. Because
you could have a church where everybody is like Donald Duck or you could have a
church where everybody is Goofy. But
either way, you've got a Mickey Mouse church, amen?
And we don't want to be a Mickey Mouse church!
So I'm telling you if we don't want to be a Mickey Mouse church, then
don't be like Donald Duck. Don't be like Goofy.
Realize that God, for His purposes, asks us to be faithful in season and
out of season. And that the road to
maturity will take you into times that are easier and then, through those times
and beyond, to times where it's harder. And
what God asks is for faithfulness in the tough times, for more than faithfulness
in the good times. Now, can we apply this to stewardship? I hope that it's obvious how this applies to stewardship,
because when we as a church (or you and your loved ones as a family, or you as
an individual) when you're in those lean years, God places you in those (places
me, places us in those years) to invite us to learn just to plug away.
Don't worry about anything other than simply being faithful with what God
has set in front of you. In terms of your commitment to Kingdom activities, there are
those times where what God says is, "Don't worry about the consequences.
You know what's right. Just
do what's right." And, you
know, our financial support of Kingdom of God-advancing causes is definitely one
of those times where sometimes we're challenged just to do the right thing even
if it stretches us. And there are other times--times of abundance, times of
ease--there are those fat years where what God asks us is not that we sort of
simply be consistent like we've always been ("I'm just going to go ahead
and keep doing what I've always done. . .")
No. There are those times
where God is just showering us as a church, or you all as a family, or you as an
individual, with added blessings. And
when God does, what God asks us to do is certainly not be less than consistent.
But not to say, "OK, I'm just going to keep . . ."
No. God asks for you, and
for you and yours, and for us to do, is to be more than consistent.
That's faithfulness in season and out of season. Let's pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, every one of us would ask (if we didn't know better) for
nothing but times of ease. But,
Lord, we realize that you have your heart set on making each one of us to be
more like your Son Jesus and that the pathway that leads in that direction takes
us sometimes into wonderful times--the fat years.
Sometimes into tough times--the lean years. Lord, we ask that you would cause us to be faithful in season
and out of season. And it's in the
strong name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on July 20, 2003.] |
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