Oct. 24, 2010 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 C & Z “Nail the Door Shut”
I have always been one who enjoys sports. I like to watch baseball, football and basketball along with many other sports. I had the privilege of playing some of these when I was younger. I remember vividly the first year that I played varsity basketball. I remember it so well because we lost every game. And we didn’t just lose every game, we got walloped. We were beat by 90-20 and 80-30. I remember one game right before Christmas where we were beat by a score of 75-25. Our coach was extremely upset. The first game after Christmas he told us that he didn’t want us coming in with a measly 25 points again that night. So we didn’t. We got beat 50-7. For all you younger folks this morning, those were the good old days. Anyway, I learned a lot in that year and the one that followed, as we lost most of our games again. I think that it was a character building time and I have been a character ever since. So I don’t really endorse the concept where we don’t keep score of games when kids are just beginning. After all, they all know what the score is anyway. I guess the point of all this rambling, is that we need to learn that we will do a lot more losing in our lives than winning. That is just the way it is. But we don’t have to feel bad about this because we always will have Jesus with us. This morning we are looking at a famous passage from Paul when he is at the end of his life. Let’s see if we can learn something here as Paul appears to be losing but is in fact winning.
We all have down times in our lives and we will all have to face death someday. Roger Thomas tells a story of Paul Azinger who is a golfer and who was the PGA player of the year in 1987. Six years later he won the PGA championship. At age 33 he was at the top of his game. Then a year later he found he had cancer. At first he feared this disease as we all would. Then he realized that he was going to die someday anyway, whether it was from cancer or something else. Golf suddenly became meaningless. All he wanted to do was live. He finally won the battle with cancer but he was a changed man. He remembers what Larry Moody, the chaplain of the pro golfers, told him. “Zinger,” he said, “we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.”
What a profound statement! This morning we have the Apostle Paul who probably realizes this more than most people of his time. Our passage this morning could very easily be two sermons so I’m going to just touch on this first part as it really is a reading that is used for funerals a lot. That is not what I want this morning but there is some tremendously good information there.
As I have stated earlier, Paul is in prison in Rome. He is not under house arrest this time. He is in chains which means that he was probably in a dungeon. He also knows that he will be put to death shortly. He has done something that has irked the authorities enough to do this. Paul had been relentless in his spreading of the Good News to the Gentiles. Many things had happened to him. He had been stoned, beaten and ship wrecked to name just a few. But everywhere he went, he preached and preached. There was no stopping him. And when he wasn’t doing all of these things, he had been writing letters to many of the churches. He wrote over half of the New Testament. It wouldn’t surprise me if he got in front of the court in Rome and preached to them. That is the kind of guy that Paul was.
I want to skip ahead to verses 16-18 now and I will allude back to these first verses. I want us to notice that Paul is all alone here. He says that no one came to his support and everyone deserted him. And Paul doesn’t blame these people at all. Most of his friends who we read about like Timothy are far away. We have to remember that it isn’t like they can jump in their cars and drive a day or two to get there for help. They are weeks away as they have to walk.
But what about those people in Rome who have been converted to the Christian faith? By this time, there would have been quite a few Christians in the area. Where are the local Christians? These are the people who don’t show up. This is not a lot different than when Jesus was taken to be crucified by the Jews and Romans. All the disciples deserted him and he was left alone.
This is important for the readers of Paul. There has been and there will be persecution in the lives of the early Christians. Many of these people will be grabbed and jailed. Some will be given a chance to denounce Jesus. Many will be put to death in some of the most horrific ways possible. And they will be alone when these things are happening.
When you think about it, we are not much different today. There is something like 6 billion people in the world and yet so much of the time we are alone. I was watching the news the other night and they interviewed someone who was addicted to talking on the cell phone. He said that he just had to do it. I’m sure that many of our young people feel the same way about texting on their phones. They have to be in touch with someone. Otherwise they would be lonely. I have also read studies that show that these devices actually don’t help alleviate loneliness at all. As a matter of fact, they make it worse. There is no substitute at all for face to face contact.
There are other ways that we are all alone. When we are informed, like Paul Azinger, that we have a disease like cancer, we are all alone. I know that many times we have family and others that gather around us to help. But we have to face this alone. It will be our decisions as to how we will cope with this.
We can also be all alone when we get falsely accused of something. We read about it all the time in the papers where someone is dragged through the mud or worse yet, spends years in prison for something that they didn’t do. Those Americans in jail in Iran would know about this. They are not only imprisoned for something they didn’t do but they also have no lawyers to speak of, at least not in the sense we think of lawyers. They are alone and all have deserted them.
There are even people today who are lonely who are around a lot people. We see this with people with disabilities. People who are different from us are often left out of our social groups. Kids who get bullied in school often times don’t have many friends. In our world where there are so many people it seems hard to comprehend that anyone could be lonely or all alone. But it happens and it happens far more often than we like to think. Maybe it’s time that we pass a law against being lonely! But, praise the Lord, there is a better way.
I think you should all know where I’m going with this and Paul is at the same place. Paul tells us that the Lord stood by him all the way and gave him strength. It was because of this that Paul had the strength to proclaim the message so that all the Gentiles might hear it. This almost makes it sound like the story of Paul ought to go something like this. God was with him the whole time as he went to trial in Rome. All his friends had deserted him and he was like our people in Iran, he was stuck without a lawyer. He is convicted and sentence to die.
Paul realizes that he is not the only one who has been or will be persecuted for his faith in Jesus Christ. He is trying to tell his readers in one of his last writings that all is well. He is saying, “I have fought the good fight. I have been faithful and the Lord is with me every step of the way. I will get to see Him soon.” These people all know this as this is part of their/our learning and training. Here is one of their leaders going through a terrible time and still he is not afraid and is happy as to where he is going.
We need to take comfort from these words also. But this can be hard to do. Often times our training has been weak so that when we get into some of these situations that could be life or death, we only think of the death part. We have a tendency to forget that we are in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living. This is where we can really notice people who don’t know Christ. Many times they will fall apart in times like this. They have nowhere to go. Personally, I don’t know how they can cope with many of life’s normal situations let alone a life or death situation without the help of Jesus.
I want us also to notice that God does not get Paul out of jail. He does not rescue him. It is the same in our lives. God generally does not cure our diseases. He will not get us out of the trials and tribulations that we face. His promise is to be beside all the time and that is just what He does. It is His presence in our lives that make us different.
But like I said, things like this are hard to do. We all need a little time when we get some really bad news. When we are told that our heart is failing or that we have cancer or some other disease, it takes a little time to digest this news. This is ok. There is nothing wrong with this as it is really how we are made. But somewhere along the line we have to come to the realization that Jesus is right beside us. He has always been there and He always will be there. He will help us to get through all of our struggles including our life and death struggles. We are not alone.
I have noticed one thing in our congregations in the last while. I have noticed that we are not very good at visiting our own people when they are sick. Some of you are quite good but many of you never go. We have been instructed to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in this world. So when we go to visit the sick or injured, we are really going in the place of Jesus. He will be with us as we visit and these people with the illnesses will not have to be alone. Remember this next time you hear of one of our own in trouble. Don’t just send them a card which is a very good thing to do. Go and visit them. It will be good for both of you.
As we get back to our reading, we find that Paul is in jail and he probably has been told that he will be executed. I think that it is pretty clear that Paul knows that end is near in this world. But he faces it with calmness. He writes letters to his dear friends. There is no one who comes forward to help him. He probably tried to evangelize the court where he was tried. I think that just because of who Paul was. He is all alone but he knows that he will never be alone and that God will deliver him from every evil attack and physical ailment as he goes to the promised place, heaven.
Paul is saying goodbye to all his friends. There is nothing he can do but wait for death. He is eagerly waiting for the time when he can be with Jesus. He wants to talk with Moses. He has questions for Elijah. He has friends and relatives that he longs to see and will see in a short time.
As your pastor, I have had the honor and privilege of knowing a few people like this. They have known that the end in this world is near and they eagerly wait to be taken away. They have fought the good fight and now they will be rewarded with a life in heaven.
We need to keep this in mind in our lives. I hope that there are none present today who are close to death but we have to be ready all the time. If you know Jesus, then you are ready. If you don’t, then confess to Him and ask Him to live in your heart. This is what Paul had done and this is what many of our friends and relatives have done. When we do this, then when it comes to our time, we will be able to face it as a new life in another place. When we die, it is not the end. It is just the beginning. But we have to be prepared.
There is a story that is told by Larry Elder of an 84 year old grandmother who fiercely maintained her independence. She lived in a town where her four children also lived, but she rarely called them except in emergencies. This sounds very familiar to me. Anyway, one morning one of her sons drove to her house in apprehension as she had called and asked him to come right over. He got there and she told him that she thought that she had a burglar in the house as she had heard noises in her closet. She suspected that he was still there. The son was upset and asked why she hadn’t called during the night when this happened.
“Well,” she said. “It was really late and I hated to bother you at such an hour. So I just took a hammer and nailed the door shut and went to bed.”
This story captures the essence of this whole passage. When we come to these pinch points in life where something major is going to happen, take your hammer, who is Jesus, and nail the door shut on all your fears. You may think that you are all alone but you are not. Jesus is always there. He is there and he wants to help you through this. Go to Him anytime and all the time. He loves you so much that He will always be there. Thank you Jesus for our lives. Let’s pray.
