Spending Your Life

2 Timothy 4. 5-8

Wandering from or turning away from something, implies that you have seen, or heard, or known the thing you are leaving behind. You were once HERE and now you have moved to THERE! Am I speaking to anyone this morning who was once HERE – tasting the good things of God but who is now out THERE – having wandered off. Turning away from listening to the truth suggests that a person once had opportunity to learn Bible truth, but has stopped listening. That person has got off the plain safe path and wandered after wrong ideas – myths. The thing about myths is that you can make them mean whatever you want. Myths appeal to your feelings and want . They are theories, clichés and stories that provide excuses for the way people are – they don’t demand change or challenge you. And because they don’t have the sharp edge of reality, they don’t threaten – you can take it or leave it. Myths are comfortable – they say what you want to hear.

Recently an Israeli tourist was lost in the bush near the Routeburn Track. She was missing for a long time and eventually her body was found well off the track. She had inexplicably wandered from the well-marked path. From her camera, the Police were able to work out what had happened. On it were a series of images. Pictures of the views she enjoyed as she wandered further and further into the deep bush and away from the safety of the marked track. From her picture-taking, it was obvious that she didn’t realize how lost she was or the danger she was in. They could see from the last image before her death, that she would have seen the safe road far in the distance. She tried to take her own route towards it but slipped on a wet boulder on the edge of a river and broke her neck. Sadly, she lay their unable to move until the cold came and robbed her of life. She died there - alone –frightened - far from help.

Wandering from the truth is like that. Myths lead to that kind of loss - Leaving the well-marked path to chase after ‘views’ and experiences that interest you - Trying to cut your own way through life - Wandering further and further away from the way of Christ.

This is different to the solid truth that the apostle Paul recommends. Bible truth is not vague, subjective philosophy – it is the truth written in real lives and none more real or more truthful than Jesus Christ. Unlike myths, God’s Word is a mirror in which you can see who and what you really are. It is a hammer that shatters make-believe. It is a fire that challenges, motivates and stirs up change. It is food and drink. And above all, it is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

All this is why Paul urges Timothy to be sober-minded and clear thinking so that he can fulfil his life’s work.

And having stirred Timothy up to spend his life wisely, Paul talks about his own life.

Paul and Timothy were at two different stages of life. Timothy was just hitting his straps while Paul was getting close to finish life’s race. Paul encourages Timothy and us to so live our lives that we finish as winners. No one remembers a person who started a race well but didn’t finish. Our school cross country was last Friday. Some boys run the first lap at a great sprint – especially when they go past the spectators. But later once the runners have been out around the streets and up the hills, the real winners come back into the school to the cheers of the kids. No one remembers those who began with a burst and faded. Paul urges Timothy and you and me to consider how we are running the race of life, so that we finish with honour and collect the medal.

Paul describes his life as a drink offering to be poured out – wine poured over the sacrificial lamb. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering v6.

In the Old Testament, the Temple sacrifices had very specific meaning. They were not just a bunch of religious routines to be kept. They were very, very serious activities that had to be strictly kept, because they illustrated in a vivid way certain vital truths that people needed to understand about God and about themselves.

In a brief summary: the killing of certain animals and the burning of their bodies taught Israel about the offensiveness of human sin and God’s intention to judge it and destroy those who harbour it and practise it. Sin costs lives. The sacrifices taught that God was postponing his direct judgment of his people to give them time and opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness. More than that, the sacrifices that went on generation after generation pointed to the time when God would put forward a perfect, once-and-for-all sacrifice not just for Israelites, but for people of any nation or time. That is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world: Jesus Christ.

Now, those of us who live after the sacrifice of Jesus at the cross, when we read all about the sacrifices and the Temple in the Old Testament, we find out a lot of rich detail of what Jesus’ coming and his sacrifice means. Whereas, the Israelites who lived before Jesus was born at Bethlehem - about 28 generations back – they had to actually DO the sacrifices and keep all the ceremonies and rituals accurately, so that each generation would understand how God was holding back his judgment until he sent a Leader (Christ) who could put things right.

For now, that’s enough background to help us understand what Paul meant when he described using up his life in God’s work as the pouring out of a drink offering. One action in the sacrifices of animals in the Temple included the priest pouring out a couple of litres of wine onto the sacrifice so as it evaporated in the heat, a sweet-smelling vapour would be given off. In the Old Testament references, it says that this was a ‘pleasing’ aroma to God.

Wine represents blood – because it is liquid and red. It also stands for joy and fellowship – because wine is drunk with a meal and it has a warm, relaxing sociable aspect to it.

Paul’s life included suffering imprisonment and beatings and enduring the loss of all things so he could devote himself to serving out the good things of God to the church. So why did Paul liken this drink offering to the using up of his life in God’s service? Because of those two images: blood and joy.

Paul was very glad and grateful that he had something to offer up to God - his entire self. He considered all his energies, his intellect, his gifts and skills (both the things he was born with and the things he had learned in life – e.g. his leatherworking skills and his academic knowledge) – his relationships, his time, his health – everything that made Paul to be Paul – he considered all that his life consisted of to have its highest value when poured out in the service of Christ. Isaac Watts expressed the same idea that Paul has:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

So, Paul is ready to pour out his life’s blood as his worship to God. Actually, he was not speaking symbolically. He had already bled for Christ. Five times he received 39 lashes. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned and left for dead. Three times he was shipwrecked. Paul had bled for Christ on numerous occasions and now he was in prison in Rome soon to be executed.

(And you thought the Christian life was boring!) When Paul thinks of his life as the wine was poured out as an offering to God – this is no theoretical outpouring. This is real. This is his lifeblood being spilled.

But, remember that the wine also represents joy. Paul was not a miserable man. He did not consider the pouring out of his life a miserable thing. Remember the jail cell at Philippi! There you had blood and joy together. Paul and Silas had been beaten with rods. They were covered in their own and each other’s blood spattering their bodies and soaking their clothes. They were fastened in chains so they could not move and get comfortable. And what do you hear from their cell – moaning? – yelled abuse? – mumbled prayers of “why me, God?” No. Singing. You hear two men making music, singing praises to God. This is not bravado but joy. Blood and joy together.

Paul wasn’t a young man. Such beatings no doubt took their toll on him and shortened his life expectancy. Some of his human life ebbed away at each of these difficulties he endured. But he did not see it as a waste. He did not see his life something to be pampered and preserved. He saw his life as something to be spent – with joy. It was pure joy for him to see the Holy Spirit using him in Christ’s service. Paul wasn’t alone in this. James said: Consider it pure joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. James 1.

And of Paul’s hero, Jesus Christ, it was said:

Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Heb 12.2.

Paul gladly accepted the option of suffering for the sake of God’s people, because he wanted to be like Christ. Phil 3.

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul saw his life as something he wanted to offer up in harmony with Jesus, the Lamb of God. He knew HE couldn’t die to save people, but he wanted his life to be evidence that Christ’s sacrifice has saving power. He saw his life’s work for the church as harmonious with Christ who laid down his life for the people of God. If Christ, the Good Shepherd, laid down his life for the sake of the flock of God, then Paul wanted to do the same thing.

The apostle John had the same idea – Jesus laid down his life for us and we should lay down our lives for our brothers.

The using up of our lives for God’s people is an act of worship – like the pouring out of the wine on the lamb about to be offered at the altar. Paul wanted to declare ‘me too’ when he thought about Christ’s willingness to lay down his life so that God’s people could be made safe within God’s family.

Where does that leave you and I? How we are going to use our lives? Are we going to keep our life-wine in the cellar so that it ages nicely and can be brought out in our retirement and sipped while we sit on a deck watching the sunset? Or are we going to pour out our lives, living them with the fixed and steady purpose of treasuring and glorifying Jesus Christ? And the best and happiest way of doing that is to commit to his business which is to do the work of an evangelist – to promote the good news and build up the household of God – his Church.

For most of us that will mean settling in the place God has put us to build families and work in communities so through the usual human activities we make plain who Jesus is and call men, women and children to follow him. For some it will involve his calling for you to go to other places – perhaps hard places. But whether we stay or go, there will be times of tragedy and disaster and times of peace and prosperity – and through all those circumstances we must demonstrate the joy, wisdom, love and power there is in Jesus Christ for his people. We must be living evidence that we are not locked into this sin and death-scarred world, but that we are the signs that God has a kingdom and it is coming!

One of the myths that lead people astray is that retirement is the golden years – the time for sitting back and enjoying what you have worked for all your life. Lies! Haven’t you seen those miserable old men trundling along behind their wives carrying their supermarket bags! Haven’t you seen those sad old women with their New Idea and Women’s Weekly magazines, sitting in the hair salon waiting for their thin grey hair to be turned into something more stylish!

Now come with me and see Paul in the last months of his life, in prison, requesting his notebooks (v13) so he can record more good teaching for God’s people – including you and me! You know what… I know which old age I would prefer.

Come with me and see Priscilla and Aquila (v19) – that husband and wife (actually Priscilla had the major ministry in that marriage) – good friends and fellow-workers with Paul since the beginning of his church planting in Ephesus. Their lives turned out different to Paul – less dramatic – no ship wrecks, maybe no beatings – but they spent their lives nevertheless. They made their home the centre of God’s work wherever they lived. Lives well spent. Lives poured out.

How sad when you read of Demas (v10) – shame on you Demas – your claim to fame is to warn Christians of every generation that falling in love with the world is a dead end.

Paul says he used up his life fighting! (v7) Some of you may have got into the wrong fights, because Paul calls his fight “the good fight”. You might be fighting against family members who have done you wrong. You might be fighting over land, over an inheritance or over children. You might be fighting to make a name for yourself or fighting to prove something. All these fights will leave you discouraged and exhausted. You need to engage in the good fight. Like Paul we are called to fight against sin in ourselves – to fight against the lies that attack our people – we are called to use the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God and other weapons of righteousness, such as prayer and good works.

Paul said he had run his race and finished it. He had kept the faith – that is, he had kept to it. He ran according to the rules – cut no corners – kept to the safe track – not wandered away after myths.

Paul finished well and expected to collect his garland or crown of righteousness. In the Olympic games of those times, the winner of a marathon would be crowned with a winners wreath on his head – we might call it the gold medal. He calls his reward the “crown of righteousness”. The proof he is a righteous man is that he has completed his race without wandering away or turning aside. The confirmation that fighting through persecution, cold, loss, and distress is worth it is the crown of righteousness – endless life – that waits for you at the finishing line.

The final proof that you are on side with Christ is that you will run your race so that you finish – and finish strongly. The crown is available to all who have loved his appearing – all who have set their hearts on holding out for him and keeping faith with him. All who have treasured the thought of seeing him, being with him and being approved by him will be crowned. Will you?