Living The Disentangled Life
Tom Shrader examines 2 Timothy 2 and the concept of living a disentangled life, using Paul's metaphors of the soldier, athlete, and farmer to illustrate Christian discipline. He challenges believers to avoid the entanglements of money, possessions, and worldly pursuits that distract from their primary calling to please God and serve as His display case to the world.
“No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so he may please the one who enlists him.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC August 2008
Recorded: 2008 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 55 min
Themes: discipline, priorities, focus, materialism, worldliness, faithfulness, dedication, perseverance, struggling with distractions, overwhelmed by possessions, seeking purpose, young adult, new believer, business owner, parent, feeling pulled in directions
Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:12, 2 Timothy 2:1-13, 2 Timothy 3, James 1:2, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, Ecclesiastes 5:10-15, Philippians 4:9, 2 Corinthians 4:8-18, 2 Corinthians 11:24-28, John 9, Matthew 5:16
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual discipline, biblical metaphors, christian calling, spiritual warfare, faithfulness, christian living, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
That have struck me this year that I don't think we get. And those words are grace and faith. And when I say we don't get them, why don't you open your Bibles to where we were last night in 2 Timothy. I think we talk about grace and faith in many ways in the exactly the same term. By that I mean we talk about saving grace or saving faith. We talk about grace that God gives us.
I don't remember exactly how Mila used the phrase, but he was talking about how it's through a series of events and miracles that we come into a family. Well that's exactly true for those of us who are in the family of God. It's through a series of events and actually through a series of miracles, grace, that God takes those of us who were dead and He brings us to life. That's a wonderful truth.
The Gap in Our Understanding of Grace and Faith
So when we talk about grace, we often talk about it in the context of I'm saved by grace through faith. We do the same thing with faith. We talk about faith, faith to believe Christ, faith to believe the gospel, faith to come to Him in repentance and understand who He is. And we use those two terms. When I say we, I don't want to bring you into some camp that you aren't really part of. Maybe you don't believe this.
But for the guys that I hang around with, we talk a lot about grace and faith as it leads from a sinner lost to a saint, to a believer. We do a crummy job talking about faith and grace after that moment. Do you get what I'm saying there? I'm not asking you to agree with it. Do you just see what I'm saying?
Living by Faith - The Ongoing Journey
Exactly where we left off last week is this idea of living by faith. Chapter 1 verse 12: "For this reason I also suffer these things. I'm not ashamed for I know whom I believe and I'm convinced He's able to guard what I've entrusted to Him." That's what faith is. That's what it means to live by faith, is that He is able to do what I'm asking Him to do, what I'm trusting Him to do.
I don't mean this in some flimsy way, what I'm expecting Him to do. I do not expect as a follower of Christ, and we're going to talk about it either probably tomorrow morning, I'm not expecting my path to be smooth and easy. But I am expecting Him to take this life and to mold me and shape me and do whatever it is He needs to do to cause me to be the man or in some cases, in your case, the woman that He's called me to be. That's what it means to live by faith.
Finding Meaning in a Collapsing World
It means that in a world that's very scary, and originally I titled this series, How to Find Meaning in a Collapsing World, with the idea that here is Paul at the end of his life and he's trying to talk to Timothy. As you look at chapter 3, show up 2 Timothy in front of you, he says this: "Realize this, in last days difficult times will come." Well that's the time we live in. How do we survive in the midst of that?
I'll give you a whole bunch of things we'll talk about again tomorrow or tonight sometime whenever we get there, but the issue is faith. I may not always see God, I mean I'd always be able to point to it and say look at Him there, but I understand that He's able to guard all the things that I've entrusted to Him. He may not work or operate exactly the way I'd want Him to.
The Paradox of God's Provision
Again if I get flashed back to the book of Ecclesiastes, that's what I see. Here's what Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes: there's all these things in life that look good, you get them and they aren't, and then there's these things in life that look bad, you get them and they're in fact good. So if I were to go through life, if I had the power, and so God is so good that He didn't give us this power, and we would just go and choose this and this and this, these good things, and in fact once we have them they aren't good at all.
Then in this buffet of life, this cafeteria, we would walk by all the section that had any difficulties or challenges or troubles with it, and we'd say no thank you, no thank you, no thank you, and in fact we'd be saying no to some of the great blessings that God has for us.
The Value of Trials in Faith Development
"Count it all joy when you encounter various trials," James 1:2, "knowing," here's the key now, "knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." So when I say, I'm in this for the long haul. The other day at lunch, Jeff gave me a tape from Joe Aldridge when he was teaching here years ago, and it's called Finishing Well. I'm really focused on that.
The last time I had dinner with Bob Craning, I said, what are you working on? He said, finishing well, finishing strong, breaking the tape, going all the way through. Well, the only way I'm gonna have that perseverance is through suffering and pain and hardship. "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." That's how I get strong. We'll talk more about that in a bit.
Entrusting Everything to God
I wanted to capitalize on that whole moment right there when we're talking about faith, about living by faith, trusting God, understanding that He is able to guard those things that I've entrusted to Him, and that is in fact everything that I have: my soul, my possessions, my past, my present, my future, and hopefully that connects to last night.
One thing by way of introduction: ladies and then guys, if you're comfortable dressing in drag, I would encourage you to go and listen to Susan today at four o'clock. It will be well worth your while. Ladies, today at four o'clock, you want to go in there. Some of you know a little bit about Susan, and you hear it, and I don't want to exploit it, but it is significant. You know, four years ago, this November, she started a journey that has been an interesting one for her when she was diagnosed with
something called inflammatory breast cancer. I'd never heard of it. I don't know that she had either at the time, had you? And it is the worst kind of cancer that you can get in terms of breast cancer. The survival rate 10 or 15 years ago was like 1% past five years. It's a little better than that now, and so she's been at it four years. It is a wonderful story. She's had three or four surgeries. She's on chemo every day, and it's a great story. It's a great story of God's perseverance, God's grace, and God's mercy, and certainly not something that she would have asked for. So it'll be a wonderful time, and you can talk to her about parenting, grandparenting, life in general, and ladies, you'll have a great time. Guys, we'll go down to Bill's. No, I'm teasing. Smoke a cigar and walk on the beach.
The Heart of Mentoring
Chapter 2 of 2nd Timothy. Let me just close a little bit of a loop yesterday, because I'm huge on this mentoring thing. I mentioned to you I'm the director of Women's Ministries at our church, and one of the components, I know that makes me laugh too, one of the components that are a main part of Women's Ministries is this idea of mentoring, and it's really interesting to me. Women come in almost instinctively and think they need to be mentored. In other words, they need somebody to sojourn through life and come alongside of them.
I really do advocate that you need a mentor in your life, and you need a protege, and I've defined mentoring this way. It's a person who's a little bit further ahead than you are that can help you live life with them. That's all it is. It's just hanging out. It may entail a book and a study and all that, but it's really just living life together. I'll talk a lot about Larry in this, but I want to make sure, because this is so precious, I want to make sure you don't waste it.
What to Look for in a Mentoring Relationship
If you are a mentor, let's say you walk away and you say, you know what? I think I do. I want to invest my time in somebody. What do you look for? I'm going to give you four or five things here. Number one, you want somebody with a curious mind. You want somebody who wants to learn. Now, by the way, the same thing is true if you're one of the younger people here, and you say, you know what? I need a mentor. What do I need in my life? When you go to Him, I would say, here's what I'm about.
You want a curious mind. You want someone who asks questions, and somehow Paul saw this. I think Paul saw something in Timothy. There was certainly a character trait. We know that. We'll talk about that in a bit, but He saw something in His personality that engaged Him. He saw potential. Well, you want somebody with a curious mind.
Remember, Sarah was just a little girl, and we're in the car. She used to ask a ton of questions, and one day she asked the question, why do we sleep lying down? And I thought, what an odd question, but what had happened is the night before, she'd seen something on the space shuttle where the astronauts are actually just kind of Velcroed in, and they sleep standing up. So she said, why do we sleep lying down? And I gave her some answer, and she gave me another question. I said, finally, I said, because mom says so.
By the way, here you go. I am so far from where I need to be here, but that spawns another thing. You know, because as a kid, I never really liked that answer. As a parent, I find it to be a very utilitarian tool. Because I said so. You know what? And you know what I've learned? And sometimes God says that. God, why are you doing this? And you know what He says? Because I said so. And that's why I learned that's an okay answer. That's an okay answer.
A Coachable Spirit
You want somebody with a curious mind, here's the second thing. You want somebody that's coachable. I've got a lot of weaknesses. I've got a few strengths. One of my great strengths is that I'm really coachable. I learn. My staff, we did a review of me two years ago, and my staff gave me some blistering reviews. I mean, they were devastating reviews. I read some of them to Susan, and I'm not kidding you, a lot of guys who got reviews that would have just folded their tent.
And you know what I did is I took two or three days and tried to absorb it, and I went to the staff. I said, some of what you wrote is true. I don't think some of it is, but I'm going to take this to heart, and I will tell you what. I will not be the same guy a year from now. You owe me to it. If I'm this guy a year from now, you boot me out of here. Man, you need to be coachable.
Determination in Action
Determined. They all go together. I have this kid. I got a call. My administrative assistant is a gal by the name of Karen, and Karen is incredible at just keeping people out of my life that don't need to be there. So I had a call one day. She said, there's this guy, and He wants to meet with you, and I said, who is He? She said, I don't know. He just said He wants to meet with you. I said, I don't think I know Him. She said, I don't think you do either. I said, I don't want to meet with Him.
So she came back a week later. She said, I cannot get rid of this guy. And so I said, okay, tell Him we'll meet for 30 minutes. And He came in and He sat down. He had a three ring binder. He said, I know we only have 30 minutes, so I don't want to waste any time. I want you to know I've listened to every tape you've ever made. So I said, all right. So the whole basis of our relationship begins with a lie, because I've got thousands of tapes. And He had a three ring binder with notes on every tape.
And He said, the reason I'm here is I'd to get into the commercial real estate business. I know that's your background, and I'd you to help me. And I described this kid this way, and He listened to the tape afterwards and laughed. He was a cockroach. You could not stop this kid. I gave Him things to do and He ran through hoops. I said, I'm going to make one call for you. And I called a friend of mine. I said, listen, I can't vouch for the guy. I'm going
to say this, he's a cockroach. You can't kill him. He's perfect for commercial real estate. He's exactly what you're looking for. Two years ago, almost to today was His first interview down there. And they're now extending him an offer.
Right before I left on vacation, I met with him. For two years, this is all he's dreamt about. And they're extending him an offer. He just had a trip to the mission field. He's come back and said, "I'm not sure this is what God wants me to do. I'm not sure that job hadn't become an idol." Coachable.
Essential Qualities for Mentoring
Here's the third thing. They have to have a heart for God. One thing I learned quickly about this Christian faith is I was in the right spot. Because here's this guy, David—he's an adulterer, a murderer. He's just kind of a real sleazebag. But he's a man after God's own heart. I thought, man, I can live up to that standard. This is a great place for me. There's got to be something that the things of God ultimately surface.
Here's the fourth thing. It's somebody who will pay the price. If you're going to dump time into somebody, or if you're going to ask somebody to dump time into you, you better pay the price, man.
God saved me. I went in. This is exactly what happened. God saved me on a Wednesday. I had gone to a Bible study he had taught. I went out and had breakfast with him. And the next Wednesday, God saved me. I went in Thursday and said to Larry, "Yesterday God saved me." And he hugged me. And I thought, oh my golly, what have I gotten myself into? They're huggers.
Two weeks later, he said, "You need somebody to disciple you." I said, "I don't know what that means." He told me what it meant, and I said, "Well, congratulations, you're the only one I know." We started meeting every Tuesday morning at six o'clock. After about three and a half months, he said, "We can move this time if you want." And I said, "No, it's all right. Just why are we meeting at six o'clock?" He said, "I've got all sorts of guys that will let me come to their office and meet at 10:30. But I wanted to make sure you're willing to pay the price."
The Heart of Teaching and Mentoring
So it's kind of a side note to this whole thing. Here's Paul, Timothy, mentor, protégé. Those are the things you want. Can I add one more thing?
Ultimately, I'm listening to Chuck Swindoll one day. He said, "Here's four characteristics of a good teacher." I'm listening online, so I stop it, get a piece of paper. I thought I had to listen to this. He said, "Here's what a good teacher ought to do. Number one, you ought to like to study." I can do that. "Number two, you ought to present well." And so I think I do that. "Number three, you need to be simple." And I know I do this. You need to take complicated things and make them simple and take simple things and let them be simple.
One of the things, again, that we see so often in the Christian faith is we make this stuff so complicated. I'll recommend a book to you. I've been recommending some books. Let me recommend another book to you. It's by a guy by the name of Larry Osborne with an E called *The Contrarian Guide to Knowing God*. In it, he says most books about knowing God are written by introverted scholars. And that's true, isn't it?
So a lot of our guys are reading David Brainerd. Do you know who David Brainerd is? Any of you know that name, David Brainerd? And Jonathan Edwards and these guys. I can't. I'm not them. I don't want to be them. I'm a simple little guy trying to figure out how does God work in my life. That book by Larry Osborne is a wonderful book.
Well, Swindoll said you got to keep the stuff simple. I thought I can do that. He said, "Here's the fourth thing. It's the most important ingredient for a teacher." And I'm going to say it's the most important ingredient for a mentor, protégé, or a Christian. He said, "You got to love the people you're teaching."
I talk to a ton of guys who want to be pastors, who want to teach. And I'll say, "Why do you want to do this?" Almost never do I hear, "Because I just love God's people." I'll hear, "I love His word, and I love to communicate." By the way, I'm guilty of the same thing. But see, anybody can do that. That's just standing up and spewing out a lesson. But there's something different about this. You're going to get it as we work our way through here. Paul says, "The things you heard, learned, saw." It implies an intimacy there, a contact there.
Strength Through Grace
Well, Paul says this, chapter 2 verse 1, perfect summary of what we've looked at: "Therefore, my son, be strong"—where? "In grace, in Christ Jesus." That's where your strength lies. Not in your own, not in your own self-will, not in your own determination. Your strength lies in your relationship with Christ. It's not about you and your determination and your self-will. It's about His grace in you. His grace that allows you to sustain and continue in spite of whatever the world or Satan or God throws at you. And I add God into that.
Do you understand? I hope you do. That everything that comes in your life is either caused by or allowed by God. Now, let that sink in. Everything in your life is either caused by or allowed by God.
God's Sovereignty in All Circumstances
You sang it. We sing these songs. We never think what the heck we're singing. You sang these words: "You give and"—what? "Take away." Just what we saw in Ecclesiastes the first night. "Oh, I love it. In the day of prosperity, be happy. But in the day of adversity, understand this: He made one as well as the other." You give, you take away.
Everything in your life, all the good things. So you're at Thanksgiving. You go, "God, thank you for our house and thank you for our clothes and thank you for our family and thank you for all this." Okay. Well, thank Him for this. Thank Him for the infirmity and the cancer and the job loss and the suffering and the pain, because that's from Him too.
Get that everything in your life, God either causes or allows, and that is a source of great comfort. If that's not true, then He's not God.
Worshiping in a God who doesn't either cause or allow everything in your life, then you're worshiping a false God. God is very clear from the beginning of this book to the end. "Who made the deaf? Who made the dumb? Who made the blind? I did." I got no problem with that. We may not always understand His purpose, but we understand the overarching goal is for our good and His glory.
We come back to that again and again. Why would God allow? And the answer is, for your good and His glory. How am I strong in the midst of that? Through God's grace. That's that piece that passes all understanding. Those are those wonderful stories that we love to read.
If you are not reading biographies, listening to biography, something is missing in your life. Those wonderful stories of those saints, oftentimes ordinary people that God uses in an extraordinary way. That's why I so hate that power of positive thinking junk that you can do it and all that kind of stuff. It's simply not true. On your own, you will always come to the end of your rope.
When God Gets You Where He Wants You
And when you're at the end of your rope, now grab this, this is very important. Then God says, perfect. I got you right where I want you. Now you'll be dependent upon me. You're done with you. Deny yourself your own will, your own agenda, your own strengths.
I spent a lot of time with guys. And listen, guys are really simple to figure. Ladies, I can help you with men. This is really simple. They're all ego. They're not very bright, and they're all little boys who never grew up. That's who they are. And they're afraid of everything. And at some point I got to get to the end of my rope where I go, "You know what? I just can't do this on my own. I'm not even going to try to put up a facade. I'm strong through grace."
Passing On What's Been Entrusted
Verse two: "And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." Now we can't spend a ton of time. This is really in the context of what Paul's doing with as a pastor. But to those of you, and I've met many of you who are church leaders, here's what Paul's saying. Those things that have been entrusted to you, it carries the idea of taking something that's valuable and depositing for safekeeping.
Those things that you've heard. Paul has the same idea that he uses in Philippians chapter four. Philippians chapter four, verse nine. He says this, "The things which you learn, receive, heard, and seen in me, practice these." See how that implies proximity. I've heard them. I saw them. I've experienced them. These words that have been trusted, you pass them on to others. You pass those on to others.
Three Illustrations: The Soldier, Farmer, and Athlete
Now, here's what we'll look at. Paul uses three illustrations here. He uses the soldier, and the farmer, and the athlete. He's communicating to us in a very practical way. It's in the context of the idea of suffering with me. And I'm going to hang on 2 Timothy chapter two, verse four. This is one of my favorite verses.
If you are like a Sunday school teacher, or you're in a small group, I want to suggest that you could take 2 Timothy chapter two, verse four, and build a whole curriculum around it. And I mean in the most practical of ways. Let's read it. "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so he may please the one who enlists him."
The Soldier on Active Duty
Again, He's using the picture here of a soldier. A soldier in active duty. This is not a soldier in the reserves. This is not a guy who's working at Starbucks, and then on the weekend, he's a reservist. This is a soldier on active duty. He says no soldier on active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life.
Think about the picture of the military. Some of you have, many of you have been in the service. Some of you have family who are in the service, and most of you have at least a general working knowledge of what that life would be like. The first thing they do is to try to disentangle them from the everyday affairs of life.
The Problem of Endless Choices
So for you and me, we wake up in the morning and there's a bit of a dilemma. What am I going to wear today? Some of you obviously don't seem as concerned about that as others, but what am I going to wear today? Well, an army guy or gal opens the closet and says I think I'll wear fatigues. What am I going to eat? Well, I'm going to go down to this hall and they're going to say you can have this or this.
Our life is so cluttered, isn't it? I go to a restaurant where for breakfast they have an item called plain and simple, and it's eggs and bread and a meat. Plain and simple. Try to order the plain and simple because it's not plain or simple. So I'll say I'll have the eggs. How would you like those eggs? Poached? Over easy? Soft? Hard? Boiled? Fried? Scrambled? Toast? You want bread? Yes. What kind? Sourdough? Rye? Wheat? White? English muffin? Sourdough. Meat? What do you want? Ham? Bacon? Sausage? Sausage. Link? Patty? It's relentless.
But I'm a soldier in active duty. I'll just have this. They don't even let you think about walking. They tell you how to walk. Left, right, left, right. They take away all those distractions. Why? So you are focused, man. That's the problem that we have in this life. We are so entangled.
Finding Freedom Through Constraint
Solzhenitsyn said that it was in the gulag that he found true freedom. I've always been amazed that these wonderful literary works, Pilgrim's Progress, are written in prison. Why? All the distractions of the world are gone. Everything's taken away, and I'm left with just these few things.
Again, to those of you who are on the front end of life, you're a little bit younger than the rest of us, I plead with you to live a disentangled life. We saw something in our church two and a half years ago, and I spoke out against it, and they gave me a bunch of
grief for it. But we saw all these young families moving out another 15 or 20 miles to get a bigger home, and I pleaded with them not to do it. I pleaded with them to listen—another bedroom is not that important. Another stall in your garage is not that important.
It's really interesting. They've all moved out there, and what I said to them is, it's 40 minutes extra driving each way each day. So your commute is now 45 minutes plus 40 minutes. It's now almost a 90-minute commute to get a spare bedroom. But our children, we have three children, so what? Here's a revolutionary idea: Put two of them in one room.
When I was a young man, my dad, part of his punishment—he was into corporal punishment. He believed in hitting you, beating you really, and then he would send you to your room, which was terrible. Now I go, "Go to your room." "All right." Turn on the screen, an iPod. I got a computer and an iPhone. There's no punishment there.
I was talking to a guy the other day, and he said, "My kid just goes into his room and closes the door." I said, "You got to be kidding me. You need to go down there and take that door off the hinges. You don't let that kid sit in his room with all this. Are you nuts? You're the dad. You're the mom. Parent Him. And if they don't like it, honestly, discipline them. And if it's that, throw them out. But you're the mom and you're the dad. You're responsible for that." I digress.
What Entangles Us
A disentangled life. What are the things, think with me, what are the things that entangle you? Can I run through a list that I have here?
One of them's money. We hit on it the other night. Whoever loves money never has money enough. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. Isn't it amazing? Can you remember back in your life when you were making 25 grand? You said, "Oh, if I could just make 40 grand, I'd be happy and happy and happy." But when your income increases, so do your expenses, don't they?
That shirt that you bought at Walmart and you paid $9 for when you were making 20 grand, you now go to a little nicer store. You now go to a Macy's and you don't pay $9, you pay $29. You used to go out and 99 cent cheeseburgers were enough, but now you got a little extra money, so now you're in the In-N-Out burger range. And then pretty soon you'll be a Fuddruckers person. And then pretty soon you'll be gourmet cheeseburgers.
There's a story the other day on the news—there's a restaurant in New York City that's charging $175 for a cheeseburger. And they're selling them and they said, "Who's buying them?" And they said clients or investors, brokers who want to impress their clients. That is not impressive to me. If I'm paying you a fee and you're buying a $175 cheeseburger, my fees are too high.
The Trap of Money
Money. We're in 2 Timothy. I can't resist it. Can you just turn to the left? In my Bible it's one page to 1 Timothy 6. And you all, I've met so many of you who keep telling me you listen to tapes and stuff, so I apologize for the repetition here, but I cannot speak in a setting like this and not talk about 1 Timothy 6.
"Godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. We brought nothing into the world, we can't take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with those we should be content." There's Paul's call to life. In Philippians 4, Paul says, "I've learned the secret to life. I've learned to live with a lot, I've learned to live with a little. I know the secret of life."
You see the warning in verse 9? "Those who want to get rich fall into a snare and foolish, harmful desires." Verse 10, "The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." What will entangle you faster than anything is in this consumer-oriented world, is to buy into it. To think you have to have that shoe, that house, that car, that school.
Since most of you I won't see again, let me just hammer this a bit. I'm watching these parents mortgage their house to send their kids to college. I'm watching kids come out of college with a hundred and twenty or thirty thousand dollars with a debt to go get a thirty five thousand dollar job. It's stupid. And when you push them, it's all ego. There's nothing wrong with public college. Now you may have the exception, you may have the kid that's gonna find the cure to cancer and they may need to scuttle on back to Harvard or something. But I doubt that.
The Secret of Contentment
You see that? There's a wonderful secret tucked in verse 7 of 1 Timothy 6. "We brought nothing into the world, we can't take anything out of it either."
I know it's gonna take 60 seconds, but can you find the book of Ecclesiastes one more time? It's where we started. I want to show you something. For a long time I taught 1 Timothy 6:7-8, and I always kind of struggled with verse 7. I thought, "What's that doing in there? We brought nothing into the world, we can't take anything out of it."
And one day I was teaching and it all came to me why it's there. In Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse 10 is the passage we looked at the first night we were here. "Whoever loves money will never be satisfied with money, nor those who love abundance with their income. When goods increase, so do those who consume them. The sleep of the workers pleasant." He's talking about riches.
And then in verse 15, chapter 5 verse 15, Solomon writes, "As he came naked from his mother's womb, so he will return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand." It's virtually identical to the idea that Paul gives us in 1 Timothy 6:7.
Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. We brought nothing into the world. If we have food and covering, those we should be content. You know what He's saying? The secret, and this is so important, the secret to contentment is eternal perspective on life. That's what He's saying. You will never, ever, ever be content until you understand you came with nothing and you're leaving with nothing. Because the nature of ourselves
and the nature of the world we're in is to keep us chronically discontent. If I think when I get that, I'll be happy, it's a lie from the world. What I need, and what Paul's saying here, is an eternal perspective. I'm going to come back to that in just a second.
Things That Will Entangle You
Can I talk about some of the other things that will entangle you in this world? It's relationships. To those of you that are single, be reminded that Paul says being single is better than being married. Why? Because once I'm married, I have a devotion to that spouse. I have a freedom in singleness that I don't have in marriage.
I think you could make a strong argument that Paul says a significant reason to marry is strictly sexual. That's why He argues, and He said, if you're married, don't deny each other physically and give Satan an opportunity there to intervene in your life. Why? Because by definition, one of the primary reasons you got into this thing is for the sexual part of it. One of the things that we see in the world we live in is we see a lot of celibate married people and a lot of sexually active singles. We got it all wrong.
Relationships totally can distract me from the purpose that God's left me here. All sorts of good things. Sports. Takes six hours to play a round of golf. You can be a University of Washington Husky fan. I don't know why, but you can be. I mean, a long year for you folk. I don't know if you have looked at your schedule this year, but you were in for a long year. That's too bad. But that's a distraction, isn't it?
The Freedom Christ Gives
God has given us a sense in Christ, a sense of freedom. Freedom from the consequence of sin and the bondage of sin and free to be the person that He's created us to be. Live that disentangled life.
My friend Larry Wright, I haven't talked about the physical aspects of Larry. Larry had rheumatoid arthritis. He prayed for humility. This is a great story. He prayed for humility, and a week later he got rheumatoid arthritis and hemorrhoids. The hemorrhoids went away, but the arthritis didn't, and it got worse and worse and worse. Then he had some heart problems, and then he had cancer.
Larry could barely walk. For him to get from over where we ate to here took a bunch of time. He and I were in Portland years ago at a Multnomah conference, as a matter of fact. We were traveling together, and he said, "You know, you're going to have to tie my tie for me. I can't tie my tie." Later on that night, he's in the bathroom. He said, "Tommy, come in here. I need you." I said, "Hey man, I don't know about this." He said, "Get in here. I can't zip up my pants." I said, "All right, I'm going to do this once. From now on, get snaps or buttons or Velcro or something."
The Beauty of Focus
Larry's arthritis was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. You know why? It focused him on teaching. If you said to Larry, "What do you do?" he said, "I teach Bible." He didn't have any strength for anything other than that.
Let me suggest to you the beauty of the disentangled life. I think I know that because I think I live it. I've got Susan, East Valley Bible Church, Priority Living, a little bit of golf, and that's it. I have no interest. We had a little thing last night where we were all together and we were sharing our hobbies. I got none. "What do you and Susan have in common?" Susan and I have not one thing in common. Nothing. We don't do anything together. We don't have hobbies together. We don't like the same things. But my life is free so that I can be focused on what I think God's given me to do.
The Purpose of Disentanglement
Now we can unpack it more. Let's get back to 2nd Timothy, because I want you to see what He does here. Here's what He says. I want you to live in disentangled life. Why? So you win the battle? No. Do you see that? It's an interesting phrase. "No soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so he's able to please the one who enlisted him."
That's why you're here: to please God, to obey Him, to do what He's called you to do, when you sin to confess it, to live a life that's focused on Him, that sees Him in all things. And again, the secret to that is I'm going to have to have this eternal view. We'll talk more about it in a second.
The Discipline of an Athlete
He shifts metaphors in verse 5. He said, "And also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules." What's He saying there? In the games, in the ancient games, especially in the games of Corinth, when the athlete would declare that he was going to participate in something like the Olympic Games, for six months prior to the competition, he would sign a pledge that he would adhere to a strict rule of training and diet and discipline. And if you violated those rules, you didn't get the prize.
Here's what He's saying to you and me. There has to be here a sense in our life, a sense of discipline, a sense of practice, a sense of going through. I love football. I love the basic training. I mentioned I coach fourth and fifth grade girls basketball for a while. At the same time, a guy who was a relatively good friend of mine was coaching the Phoenix Suns. I taught down at the arena once a week. Whenever I was going to teach down there, I'd go down to practice first. It was amazing. The drills the Suns ran were essentially the same drills we ran with the fourth and fifth grade girls. The same passing drills, the same discipline of simply setting a pick and roll.
I had a wonderful treat about two years ago. Four things in my life I'll never see again: Muhammad Ali, a fighter like Ali, a band like the Beatles, an athlete like Secretariat, and a coach like John Wooden. I'm never going to see those four things again. I get a call one day from a friend who was on three of those championship teams for Wooden and we're talking and he said, "How's Susan doing?" I said, "Fine." He said, "How's Coach Wooden?" Long pause. He said, "You want to go up to his house?" I said, "Are you kidding me?" And we went and we spent three...
three and a half, four hours, whatever it was with Coach Wooden in his house. I said, do you watch much NBA basketball? He said, no, I don't watch any. He said, I watch UCLA, but I watch a lot of girls basketball. I thought, really? And he said, you know why? Because they still understand passing, defense, and the basics of the game.
It's a discipline. The Christian life is a discipline. Your life is a discipline. That athlete is discipline. The best golf I've ever played, I played about three years ago. And that summer, I'll bet you I hit five, and I'm not exaggerating, 5,000 wedges. I don't know how much you know about golf, but you drive for show and putt for dough and all that stuff. Well, the game is all really played from 100 yards in. It's not very complicated game to figure out. You got to get it up and down from 100 yards in.
And that summer, I just hit wedge after wedge. I mean, and I literally, I got to this point where I could go, here was 90 yards, here was 75, here was 50. You give me the distance, boom, boom. It's the best golf I ever played. And it's all because I hit thousands of wedges. That's what he's saying. He's saying, there's a discipline here. There's a focus here.
And then, you see the last part? It's the farmer, the hard-working farmer. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding. Remember, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to the gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to a prison as a criminal. But the word of God is not in prison. For this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who were chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory.
Three Essential Qualities for Christian Living
Here's what Paul's saying to Timothy, and I think to you and me as well, is there needs to be in our life, and I have three D's, this sense in which I'm disentangled, disciplined, and diligent. You cannot play at this Christian life. I am stunned at the number of people who will say to me, I'm not growing, and you ask them just a few questions and say, well, how's your discipline? How much time are you throwing at it? Well, I can't understand it. I can't understand that Bible. Well, how hard are you working? It's not that hard to figure out.
Finding Motivation in the Midst of Struggle
Turn to 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, here it is. Paul said, you know what you need in the midst of that? You need some motivation, and I'm going to give it to you. He's talking about life. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 4, he said this, verse 8, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. Does that sound like you? Does that sound like you? Crushed, perplexed.
What's the answer? Look at verse 16. Therefore, in the midst of this, we do not lose heart. 2nd Corinthians 4:16. We do not lose heart. Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
The Reality of Physical Decay and Spiritual Renewal
Paul said here's a reality of life. The body is eroding away. Science tells us that within minutes of our physical birth, we begin the process of dying. We have empirical data of it. I have it in my bathroom at home. I have a floor-to-ceiling mirror, huge mirror. It's about as wide, almost as wide as this, because it's two doors. And next to it are sinks, and just a little bit off to the side is a shower. The other day I got out of the shower and had a full glimpse, floor-to-ceiling in the mirror. And here's what I thought. The outer man is decaying, right?
We talked about it last night. I was talking to some of the gals last night about getting old. And there's a wonderful aspect of getting old, the wisdom, but the physical part is difficult, isn't it? The outer man is decaying, but the inner man is being renewed. And then I hate this phrase. How's it being renewed? Day by day.
God, I don't want it day by day. Give us our daily bread. I don't want it daily. I want it all right now. I want to know I got it. But see, if He gives it to me day by day, there's an advantage here. I can't blow it all, one. And two, I'm coming back to Him every day. I need Him every day. The minute I begin to think I can do this on my own, I'm in real trouble. The outer man is decaying, but the inner man is being renewed day by day.
Paul's Description of Life's Difficulties
Look at this. For momentary light affliction. That's his description of life. If you said to Paul, what's life? He said, well, it's momentary light affliction. Paul's life, by the way, is not exempt from difficulty. Why don't you keep your finger right there and turn to chapter 11, and you get just a sense, as Paul speaks autobiographically, of the hardship in his life.
2 Corinthians 11, verse 24. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. We need to stop there, because language changes in its meaning over time. Paul's not saying he got out in the back and smoked a little weed. The stoning that he's talking about here is a form of capital punishment. So what they would do is they would take the victim out, and they would take these, and you always get these, wow, they stoned him. They threw little rocks at him. No, they're throwing boulders at him, and the whole point there is to kill him. He said, one time I was stoned. You can go and read about it in the book of Acts. They actually thought they killed him, but they didn't.
Three times I was shipwrecked. A day and a night I've spent in the deep. He says this, I've been on frequent journeys, and here's the operative word, danger. Dangers from rivers, and dangers from robbers, and dangers from my countrymen, and dangers from the Gentiles, and dangers in the city,
and dangers in the wilderness, and dangers in the sea, and dangers among false brethren. I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, and hunger and thirst, often without food. Now, remember what Paul said? What did he call that? Momentary light affliction. And beyond all that, by the way, here's the real hardship for him. Verse 28, apart from the external things, is the daily pressure upon me for the concern of all the churches.
Paul said, I have all these things in my life. They are momentary light affliction, and they are producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. So it scales. Here's Paul saying, I take all that momentary light affliction, I put it on the scales, it goes like this. But he said, it's producing for me an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. When I take the glory that He's talking about and put it here, the scale goes like that.
The Secret to Living Disentangled
Here's the secret. Here's the secret to being a soldier who's disciplined, a farmer who's hard-working, an athlete who's in this process of being dedicated. He said, we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen, those are eternal. It's exactly the same idea.
Where do you get motivated in the midst of this? My motivation comes from understanding the unseen things, the eternal things, that God has saved me. He's delivered me. Why? So I might be a vessel He uses to bless the people around me. So that I might become a display case for His good works, His grace, His majesty.
We saw last night, so my light might be seen. Let me give you the rest of that verse. Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works. What's the last part of that verse? And glorify your Father in heaven.
They Will Naturally Glorify You, Not God
I want you to see this. They will not do that naturally. They will naturally see your good works and glorify you. They'll naturally see your good works and say, there's something special about you. There's something significant about you. You're an amazing person. You're really dedicated. You're really disciplined. The only way, this is really rich here, the only way they'll glorify your Father in heaven is if you tell them to.
Somebody long ago said something that's really stupid. Here's what they said: "Preach the word and if you must, use words." You heard that? There's no other way to preach the word. You have to use words. Now I understand what they're getting at. They're saying live a different life. All I'm saying to you is, if you live this godly life and you don't tell them about Jesus, they're going to worship you and not Him. This idea of preach the gospel and if you must use words is stupid.
I have to make the invisible God visible and speak the truth boldly. Do you see that? If you do one and not the other, you're a hypocrite. If you speak the truth boldly, you don't make the invisible God visible, you're a hypocrite. If you make the invisible God visible but don't speak the truth boldly, you're a coward.
God's Display Case
The way that God's called you and me to live is to live a disentangled, disciplined, hard-working life, dedicated life, so that the people around us begin to see something distinct, unique, and different about us. God left you here to be His display case wherever He's placed you. God is in the process of proclaiming the truth and His glory and He's decided to use ordinary, everyday vessels like you and me. That's so important.
I am so afraid that we come and we study something like this and we figure, what am I going to get out of it? I'm going to do all this so God will bless me. No, you will do all of this so God can use you as a blessing to others for your good and His glory. Everything in your life, God's called you for a reason and a purpose. It's so important for us to begin to grasp that and live this way. Not to just be meandering through life.
It's okay to try to figure stuff out. But you better be figuring it out and in the process understand God's using you for a reason. And I need to stay motivated. How will I stay motivated? Man, I understand that the outer man is decaying and the inner man's being renewed. I understand the things I see are temporary, the things I don't see are eternal. I understand that I came into the world with nothing and I'm leaving with nothing. So what happens here is what's so important. And He left me here for a reason and a purpose.
The Normal Christian Life
And again, I come back to this again and again, and Paul and Timothy aren't the exception, they're the rule. I don't want you to look at, oh, that Paul is really something. Yeah, that's fine. That Timothy's really something. Yes, he is. But they're no different than you. That's the thing we have to grasp. We don't need to idol worship these guys or make them heroes. They can be role models for us. That's the normal Christian life. We've lost that.
And God saved us for a reason. And He saved us for a purpose. And so His glory might be displayed in us so that we can glorify Him in all we do. Isn't that what Paul says? Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, the simplest things of life, you glorify God in the midst of them. It's so important for you and I to grasp this. You are His display case.
John chapter 9. Walking into the city, there's a blind man. So the disciples, thinking like the world does, said, why is this guy blind? Whose sin? This guy or his parents? And Jesus said, it's neither one, but that he might become a display case for the work of God. That's you and me. You are a display case for God's grace and mercy. Your life, your spiritual life, is a miracle. You were dead and you were alive. You had nothing to do with it. He did it all. You are a display case for His grace. He's everything, we're nothing. But He saved us for a reason. And now you and me.
A thought just popped into my mind, but time's getting away from me. There's something in the back of this Bible, the first Bible I ever had—Larry gave me this. This is Major Ian Thomas's appraisal of Paul's conversion. You know what I think I'll do? I'll read that to you a little bit later. Maybe tonight.
I've got a special treat for you tonight, by the way. Can't tell you what it is. It's just a special treat for you tonight. I want to pick up where we're going to pick up in chapter 3 tonight, I think. We'll take a look at that.
A Closing Prayer and Challenge
Let's pray together. Father, will You help us live this life, and help us see that this is the way that we are supposed to live. This is the ordinary Christian life.
God, as we close our time here this morning, we thank You that You've given us grace, saving grace and mercy. And now as we have the opportunity through the day, Janet reminded us—it's really kind of cool. If you go into town, you got on this name tag. And people are going to look at you, and what she's saying is, they're going to evaluate the conference center by how you behave.
God, help us see that people evaluate You by how we behave. We call You Father. Now let us live like Your kids. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.