Introduction

          I came to tonight’s message by asking the question, “What are you training for?”  I vividly remember what it was like to be a new recruit in basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  One particular experience that comes to my mind was the ropes course. [If you’ve never seen a ropes course, basically it’s a high-wire experience for dummies.]  It’s designed to help you stretch your abilities and help you overcome fear.

The instructors told us the high ropes were only thirty feet above the ground, but once I reached the top it seemed as if someone had grossly underestimated the distance by several hundred feet.

Now, they don’t just let you loose on the course.  First, the instructors demonstrate exactly what you are to do.  As you watch, you start to think oh that’s not so bad, it seems safe.  The equipment looks strong and sturdy and the instructors did say that no one has ever died from this experience.

But do I really believe them?  Part of me did, but not my stomach or my sweat glands.  I tried hard to stop my anxiety.  I made every effort to feel and act relaxed.  But neither the instructors teaching nor my own will power was enough to transform my inner being.

I had to experience the ropes course.  As I did, a change began to take place.  Slowly, I came to trust what I had been taught, that I really would be safe.  After a while, my whole being began to believe it.

What does it mean to enter training?

          “It means to arrange your life around certain exercises and experiences that will enable you to do eventually what you are not yet able to do even by trying hard.” – John Ortberg

Training is essential for almost every significant endeavor in life.  We need to learn some spiritual disciplines that will train us to live like Jesus.  I feel however that spiritual disciplines have come to be misunderstood.  Richard Foster wrote a book several years ago that called, Celebration of Discipline.  In it he describes twelve activities for spiritual growth.  When I read that book, my first impression was, “I already feel guilty enough about not reading the Bible and praying enough; the last thing in the world I need is ten other things to feel guilty about.

          My next response was to draw up an ambitious plan for spiritual advancement that would immediately incorporate all twelve practices so I could feel good about spiritual growth.  I tried real hard but eventually I became overwhelmed and exhausted by it.  So before we get into training it will be important to consider what spiritual disciplines are not.

1. Spiritual disciplines are not a measure of spirituality. 

The ultimate indicator of your spiritual health is your capacity to fully love

God and love people.

1. Spiritual disciplines are not a way to earn favor with God.

They have value only as they keep us connected with Christ and empower us to live as he lived.  They are not about trying to be good enough to merit God’s favor.

1. Spiritual disciplines are not necessarily unpleasant.

What makes something a discipline depends on what we are training for.  If we are training for a triathlon, we will pursue one set of practices.  But if we are training for a pie-eating contest, our preparation will be completely different.

Many of us got the impression somewhere that for an activity to count as a spiritual discipline, it must be something that we would rather not do.  However, if we are training for a life characterized by joy, peace, and affection, we should assume that some of the practices are going to be down right enjoyable.

What does it mean to be a disciplined person:

A discipline person is one who can do the right thing at the right time in the right way with the right spirit.

A disciplined follower of Jesus is someone who discerns when laughter, or gentleness, or silence, or healing words, or truth telling is called for, and offers it promptly, effectively, and lovingly.

Every person who believes in Jesus Christ has become a new recruit in the army of God.  But a recruit without training is of no use on the battlefield.  The recruit must understand himself and his limitations, he must understand his battle gear; and he must understand his enemy and the way the enemy works.

In 2 Timothy 2, Paul sends instructions to a young man he had recruited on his second missionary journey.  From Acts 16 we know that Timothy was raised amid conflict.  He was born in the area of Lystra, where Paul had faced tremendous opposition on his first missionary journey.  Timothy must have seen battles of another sort at home in the struggle between the faith of his Jewish mother and grandmother and the unbelief of his Greek father.

People saw Timothy’s motivation and commitment and spoke well of the young man.  Paul had been looking for someone to train and when he heard about and saw Timothy, he knew he had his man.  The Greek in Acts 16:3 says that emphatically.  Paul probably marched up to Timothy’s mother and said, “Lois, kiss your son good-bye he’s coming with me.”

2 Timothy is the last letter that he wrote and it is appropriate that Paul sends it to his Timothy.  In chapter 2, Paul gives us the first step in Christian Training and that is to recognize the Power Source.

“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

(2 Tim 2:1)

            We have no strength of our own.  Jesus says in John 15:5 that, “apart from me you can do nothing.”  Paul calls Timothy his son.  The word for son has a different meaning depending on whether it is applied to the son of a woman or the son of a man.  For the son of a woman, the word means birth.  But when it is used for the son of a man, it implies training.  In the ancient world while the mother bore the child, the father was responsible for the child’s instruction and training.

          “Be strong” here is the Greek word endunamis.  Dunamis means power or ability; en means within.  This is inner power, inner strength.  This is a command from Timothy’s spiritual father Paul.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul is saying, “Timothy you must keep on being strengthened.  You must keep on disciplining yourself as a student.  You must keep on in the principles of the faith that I instilled in you while you were under my instruction.

          Paul wanted Timothy to be powerful in the faith.  But he knew that to achieve that, Timothy had to understand the need for self-discipline in the area of study.  So, Paul tells him to keep on being strengthened within by the power of God’s grace.  Again and again, Paul emphasized to his young recruit the power of God that was available to him.  Timothy had hang-ups; he had problems.  But Paul wanted him to know that God’s grace can overcome all personal limitation.

          Because we are born into a fallen world, because we are born with a sin nature, we all have flaws and shortcomings.  All of us are born broken.  We come into this World cracked, flawed, and insufficient.  But the grace of God is our glue; salvation and spiritual growth mend our cracks and fill our deficiencies.

          God wants His children to grow up.  He wants them to move from the point of salvation through spiritual infancy, through the difficult stage of adolescence, to the point of spiritual maturity.  In order for us to achieve this, God gives us his power.  Christians give all kinds of excuses for why they can’t do the things God wants them to do, but none of the excuses are valid.  Grace will fill every deficiency in out lives, if we will let it.  This is why Paul challenges his student.  Grace means that God supplies everything, and grace is “in Jesus Christ.”  Every moment of life counts.  Every moment is an opportunity to be guided by God into his way of living. 

Training means to keep the truth safe.

“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.”

(2 Tim. 2:2)

          Paul begins to describe the type of work he wants.  He shifts to an analogy of a businessman, specifically the banker.  Timothy had been taught many things – many truths, many doctrines – as he traveled with Paul and Silas most importantly the Gospel of Jesus.  “Entrust” means to place on deposit for safekeeping.  It does not mean burying it somewhere safe.  Rather, it means to keep an eye to its purity as it is communicated.  We see that Timothy, like every other minister of the gospel including you and me, is a link in the chain of redemption.  Each believer has received the Gospel as a stewardship.  The same word is used by Paul in 2 Tim. 1:12,14 to explain that he had placed his soul in safekeeping with the Lord.  The only way to keep truth safe is to deposit it in someone else’s life.  Paul is asking Timothy to deposit the treasures he learned into the lives of faithful people.  Faithful is what believers should strive to be in small or large ways.  We have that responsibility.  God has blessed each one of us in a different way.  We all come from different life situations and each one is valuable to God and needed in our training of one another.  Our task is to share those blessings with others in similar life situations.  Training of this sort prepares us for Combat.

Combat

“Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:3)

          A soldier is designed for combat; combat demands extreme self-discipline.  The way of growth is not easy; it is not designed to be easy.  It is designed to demand a great deal of discipline and concentration.

          “Suffer hardship” is a triple compound word, SUN-KAKO-PATHEO.  Patheo is our word “pathos.” It means to suffer.  Sun mean together.  Kako means evil, hardship, or pain.  Evil is Satan’s policy for attacking the army of God.  Timothy had to recognize that he had been recruited for this.  He had to understand that Paul was about to depart this world in victory and he was determined to leave a heritage behind in the life of Timothy.

          Paul had given Timothy an example to follow.  Before he was recruited, Timothy saw Paul display tremendous spiritual heroics by returning to Lystra where he had been stoned and left for dead.  In spite of the attempt on his life, Paul realized there were people who were hungry for the Gospel.  Because he had the courage to go back, even at that risk of his own life, he found something there.  He found Timothy, the person to train the next generation.

Motivation for training comes from God.

“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim. 2:4)

          Being a soldier demands hardship.  What could possibly motivate the soldier to endure the rigors of boot camp and of military life?

          Verse 4 tells us.  The “soldier in active service” simply refers to one who is serving in a military campaign.  A campaign is tough, and the soldier who intends to stand cannot afford to entangle himself in the distractions of civilian life.

          You cannot be a soldier and a civilian at the same time.  You have to be one or the other.  You cannot live the Christian way of life and be involved in worldly activities.  You have to choose one or the other.

Jesus says it best in Matthew 12:30, “He who is not with me is against me.”

          Paul is saying this: at any point in time you are either in fellowship or out of fellowship; you are either in the battle or out of the battle; you are either with the cause of Christ or an enemy of the cause of Christ.

          No soldier has time for the occupations of civilian life.  Why? The military dictates every moment of the soldier’s life.  The soldier must be here at a certain time; he must be there at a certain time.  He is told when to go, when to stay, what to do, and how to do it.  He is expected to do what he is told and he does.

          That is, or should be, the Christian life for the individual believer under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

          No soldier involved in a campaign entangles himself in the activities or the occupations of a civilian.  Why? “So that he may please the one who enlisted him.”  “That he may please” is a contingency.  It depends upon your personal response.  You make your own free-will decision to please God, to commit yourself to the service he has enlisted you for.  The word enlist literally means call into service.

          In the ancient world if a man wanted to be a commander, he went out and signed up however many people he could.  If he signed up 10 or 100, those were his troops.  He was the commander and he led the men he recruited into battle.  The man who wanted to be a commander had to be the kind of man people could trust or else no one would volunteer to follow him.

          Jesus is signing up troops for His army, and He challenges you to follow Him.  One of the highest motivations you could have in life is to please the One who enlisted you, to have the Lord Jesus tell you that you did well in combat; you succeeded; you were victorious.

I have a challenge for you this week to see that all of life counts.  If you let them, the ordinary moments of your day can become powerful training exercises in spiritual transformation.

For one week, punctuate your days with this simple question, “How can this moment train me?”  For example:

·        You’re in an express checkout line behind someone who is either rude or mathematically challenged, and you’re getting really frustrated.  Stop and ask, “How can I use this moment to train me in patience and graciousness?”

·        Someone offends you with a hurtful comment.  You are just on the edge of hurting them back with a cutting remark.  Stop and ask, “How can this moment train me in self-control and loving honesty?”

·        You’re on the verge of procrastinating (again) with a project you dislike.  Stop and ask, “How can I respond in this moment in a way that will help train me in perseverance and faithfulness?”

·        You’re grumbling through daily chores – laundry, shopping, and tasks at work.  Stop in the midst and ask yourself, “How can I use this moment to train myself in gratitude for all that God’s given me?”

·        In the midst of a pressured day, you encounter someone in need.  Stop and ask yourself, “Might God want to use this moment to train me in kindness … and to trust that I can be helpful and still accomplish what I need to do?”