Episodes
Sunday Jun 02, 2013
GPS
Sunday Jun 02, 2013
Sunday Jun 02, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder 2 Timothy 3:10-17
The older Apostle Paul writes to young Timothy: “You have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.”
Paul, in prison near the end of the journey of his life, is writing to young Timothy near the beginning of the journey of his life, words of encouragement, advice and instruction.
Timothy, how are you going to manage the journey of your life? There are things that you can learn from me, Paul says. Learn from me. “You have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering …”
The first thing that strikes me from these verses is that the Apostle Paul thought he was a patient person. Reading the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, patient is not an adjective I’d use for the Apostle Paul. Yet Paul ended up writing more of the Bible than any other single persons. Which illustrates that you do not need to be perfectly self-aware for God to speak through your words in some way.
“You have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering …”
The phrase I’d like us to focus on this morning, in this passage written by Paul to Timothy, are the words “my aim in life.” It is true that the Apostle Paul had a clear aim in life and that his aim in life enabled him to live a purposeful and meaningful life no matter what his station in life happened to be at any particular time in his life.
If he was thriving as a leader and teacher or if he was being persecuted or suffering, his life still had direction and purpose because he had an aim in life.
In another book that Paul wrote from prison, Philippians, he wrote: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4”11-13)
Because Paul had an aim in life, no matter his circumstance in life, he still had meaning and purpose and spiritual richness.
I want to say a few words about what I think an aim in life is and isn’t.
An aim in life is not the same as a vocation. If our aim in life is to have a certain vocation, we are aiming too low. Being a lawyer or a teacher or an accountant or a construction worker or a minister may be one of the ways of living toward our aim in life but it is not in and of itself our aim or we are aiming too low.
If I am a lawyer and for some reason I stop being a lawyer, I still need an aim in life. So if my aim in life is to be a lawyer, I am aiming too low. If my aim in life is to be a pastor, I am aiming too low.
We become a lawyer or pastor or whatever we become vocationally in order to work for a higher purpose, our vocation cannot be our purpose or we will ultimately be disappointed. If our aim in life is merely a certain vocation, when our vocation ends, and it probably will, we will not know who we are.
Our aim in life is not the same as our vocation.
Our aim in life is not the same as our status. If our aim in life is to be happily married, to have a family, to be financially successful, highly educated, many degreed, healthy, famous, a person of high integrity, long lived, or any other status, we are aiming too low.
If we achieve the status we desire … we get married, we get every degree we can get, we become someone of high integrity, we live longer and longer … what then? What purpose does our marriage serve? What purpose does our family serve? What purpose does our integrity serve? What purpose does our raising age serve?
Our aim in life is not the same as our status.
Our aim in life is not our passion. Passions come and go. Passions burn hot and cool. A passion is not an adequate aim in life. Our aim in life needs to be deeper than our passions.
When I listened to Pastor Dawn’s sermon last Sunday introducing the theme of Pit Stops on the journey of life, what struck me most, frankly, was how much she knew about Nascar. I had no idea that the average pit stop in a Nascar race was 17 seconds. A pit crew apparently manages to gas up the car, change tires, and do everything else they need to do in a 17 second pit stop.
When we are traveling we need pit stops. One of the pit stops we need is to check our GPS or our road map… to make sure that we are aimed in the right direction. We need to make sure the particular highway we happen to be on at the moment will connect us with the next road we need to take to get to where we intend to go … to our ultimate destination.
This past week I asked a young pastor in our conference John Rudolph if I could repeat a story he told in a sermon. Both Al Hammer and I serve on the Board of Ordained Ministry and we are both on the sermon review committee of the board. It is our job to watch videos of every candidate preaching a sermon and pass or fail them.
In his trial sermon, John told a story that for some reason I have never forgotten. He was serving a church in Western Maryland at the time. His parents, who lived in Winchester, VA., visited him and were very impressed by the GPS in his car. They decided they wanted to buy one, especially because they had a trip they were about to take. John suggested that instead they borrow his and use it for the trip and then decide if they like it enough to spend the money to buy their own.
John’s parents made their trip and the GPS served them very well. When it was time for them to go home, John’s father asked his mother to set the GPS and they took off. Hours later John’s father said, we seem to be way to far north to be heading home. He said to John’s mother, Are you sure you put our address in the GPS correctly.
John’s mother said, Oh I didn’t need to put our address in. There was a button to push that was labeled Home.
The Apostle Paul’s advice to young Timothy was to know where his true home was.
For Paul, he knew that his true home was Christ. His aim in life was Christ – the place where there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, neither rich nor poor, neither straight nor gay, race doesn’t ultimately matter. Ability doesn’t ultimately matter, occupation doesn’t ultimately matter, degrees don’t ultimately matter, and immigration status doesn’t ultimately matter. Christ is where all people are one … the place Jesus himself called the Kingdom of God … the realm of justice, inclusion, and peace.
If we know where home is, then it doesn’t matter what occupation we find ourselves in, what our status is, what our passion of the moment is, whether we have little or plenty, whether we are applauded or persecuted, our lives will have direction and purpose.
So we come together again today to remember and to rehearse the aim of our lives as the people of God. We share one loaf and one cup to remember that the aim of our life is a world where all people are one and there is justice and inclusion and peace. This is home. This is where our GPS points no matter where we find ourselves at any particular moment. This is our aim.
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