In The Blender

Turn with me over to 2 Timothy

2 Timothy 1:1–7 NKJV

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, 2 To Timothy, a beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, 4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, 5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

This is Paul writing to his spiritual son Timothy, who is now a young pastor in the ministry.

He is writing to encourage him.

And the things that Paul writes here are thing that will encourage us also.

You Have the Goods, Stir Them Up!

First he says, Timothy, You have the goods.

If you remember, one of the things that we’ve looked at over the these summer messages is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to be witnesses - or as I’ve been saying gives us the goods to back up the words.

So, Paul tells this young pastor that no matter what he faces, He has the goods.

And he reminds him of his upbringing - Grandmother and Mother

And of his call and commissioning. That a group of men recognized the calling in his life and laid hands on him to send him forth into that calling.

Secondly, Paul tells this young pastor that there is going to have to be times that he will have to stir up those goods (the gifting) that is in him.

Why? Because the enemy will bring fear and doubt and discouragement through his attacks. And many times those gifts in our lives can become lost in the mix.

When I speak of the mix, I’m speaking of the grind of every day life.

I’m speaking of the things that come our way by just living in a human world

But I’m also speaking about the things that come our way by being a spiritual person in a spiritual world - the spiritual attacks of the enemy.

Paul knew that Timothy would be attacked by humans and by demonic beings and so he tells him to make sure that he stirs up the gift that is within him.

It’s like a good stew (or anything else you may cook that needs several different ingredients)

A stew is a good think if it’s stirred up.

all of the ingredients lend their flavor to the overall taste of the whole.

They blend together to make a whole different taste of their own.

But if you just dip the ladle in and dip from the top, what do you get? WATER, right?

It’s weak. It may have a tinge of the flavors, but nothing like when you get in there and stir it all up.

(Pots of soup on the salad bars - I get down to the bottom).

My brothers and sisters, God, through the death and resurrection of his son and the empowerment of His Holy Spirit has given each of us the goods.

You’ve got what you need to do the things that we have been speaking about over the the last few weeks.

The goods to be witnesses for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

He’s placed it down in you.

He’s given you the ability

Don’t listen to the enemy and let him tell you that you can’t do it.

Don’t allow him to dupe you in believing that it’s for every one else but you.

But here is the key - It needs to be stirred up.

All of those good and powerful gifts and tools need to be brought up to the top and added to the mix.

Jesus called us all the salt of the earth. Now I don’t use a lot of salt, but how many know if you have a stew or some other meal that is a little bland, you get the salt shaker or pepper shaker or whatever kind of other spice you like and put a little in there and then mix it up, what happens? It tastes good, right?

That’s what Jesus was saying here - we, as the containers of his presence in this world would have the ability to mix into the bland and tasteless situations of this world and mix it up a little bit.

Bring a good taste to it

Bring hope to it, bring peace to it, bring His power to it.

AMEN?

He is telling us to be that salt. To be that agent of change that he has called us to be.

The problem is that in the midst of all of that, life happens.

These things tend to settle to the bottom, because of everything else that we are involved in.

But if we aren’t allowing the Holy Spirit to mix them up or be active in our every day lives, we are going to miss those opportunities.

Mixing It Up is to Be Ready

A big part of what we have been studying is The Holy Spirit placing us in the right time at the right place.

How many realize today that the right time with God in another persons life, probably won’t be the right time in our schedule?

So what does that mean? We need to be ready.

Philip and the Ethiopian

Angel tells Philip to get up and go to this desert place

He had to be ready. He had to know his scripture.

Peter and John walking by the beggar

Had to have something to give him. (they had no silver or gold)

What will you have when that co-worker gets the call from the doctor

Or when the parent gets a call from the police in the middle of the night

Or when a person you are with has a question about something that they saw in the Bible or in a movie last night?

Will you be ready? Are you keeping the pot mixed up? Will they get water or the full taste of the stew that God has placed in your life?

Think about that right now. It’s important.

A daily prayer of ours should be something like, Holy Spirit, you know what you have planned for my life today. Make sure that I’m ready to be poured out in every situation that I may find myself in.

This chapter that we read this week was all about getting people out of their prisons.

That means having the goods to assist people that our bound by sin

Having the power of the Holy Spirit in our services so when they visit, God can move

Having the power of the Holy Spirit active in our lives in Work, in school, in the car, on the field and any other place that we might find ourselves living life.

It means we have life giving words, flowing from our mouths.

It means we have life giving thoughts flowing from our minds and our hearts

It means that the good of heaven is touching through our actions

And it means that we know how to pray and use the Word of God to see the shackles broken off of others lives.

ALWAYS - wherever and whenever you are.

Mixing It Up is to Be Praying!

What I love about Pastor Cymbala’s books is that he never gets away from the root of it all - Prayer.

All of these things are born in prayer.

Everything that we ever hope for our church and our lives, and our vocations and our families and our time on this earth has to be born of prayer.

What does that mean church family? We aren’t doing it enough.

We aren’t as serious about prayer as we should be

We don’t put the effort into our prayer as we ought to.

We are falling short in our prayer life and it’s evident in our lives.

If you want to be ready spiritually for anything on any day at any moment, you better be in prayer.

But here is the problem with our prayer lives.

Prayer with the phone

Prayer in the car

Prayer in bed

How do I know that they are all true? Because I done them all.

Church, when do we get serious about warfare?

When do we recognize that people’s lives hang in the balance in our prayers

Think about Peter and John with the begger.

Where were they going? Does anybody know? Yes, they were going to the 3 pm prayer meeting. What would have happened, if they weren’t prayed up before that?

NOTHING. Thank God, they had also been to the 9 am prayer meeting. They were ready to see this man healed.

Let’s think about our young Pastor Timothy.

Paul is saying, Timothy Stir it up. Pray and seek God’s power in your life.

Don’t just trust your natural abilities and your inclinations

Let your spiritual gifts and power arise in your life and in your ministry.

He was telling this pastor to be ready for whatever the enemy was going to throw at him

He was encouraging him to stay connected to God because you never know where ministry will take you

Sometimes you have people say, Pastor, can I talk with you. And you have a pretty good idea what they are coming in for and then bam, it’s totally different

How are you ready for that, if you aren’t in prayer?

Lastly today,

Mixing it Up is Liberty

Pastor Cymbala says that it is about the last thing that we have in a good many of our churches in the present day.

We have this hoop that people need to jump through.

We have all of this, religious - this is the way we’ve always done it, so that must be how God moves.

How do we know how God moves, we never give him time to move.

We are in such a hurry

We have so much to do

We can’t sit still long enough to give God time to move.

How many know, God can’t move in that!

God moves in hearts that are free.

God moves in lives that are waiting on him to move

God moves in situations where faith is being released

God moves in times that aren’t rushed and manipulated

WE think that people need to come into churches that have full schedules

Churches that have it all together

Churches look a certain way, or are built a certain way

Churches that sound a certain way

And I don’t doubt that any of that is true. We go by sight and feeling

But when there is a need, do you know that all of that goes out the window.

If I’m sick, I want a church where the people are free to pray the way that God tells them to

If I’m lost, I want a church where freedom can be felt and my bondage can be broken

If I’m in need in any way, I want to be in a church where the power of God is free to move.

Where the people are free to be who they are

And where the people are who they are because the spiritual gifts are flowing. They’ve mixed it up.

I wonder today in closing, if we couldn’t spend a little bit of time in prayer today. And if two or three people would pray for our church.

If we would pray for each other that we would be

A church that is ready - for whatever would walk through our doors. For whatever anyone around needs at any moment.

A church that is praying. We aren’t there church. We need a prayer force to be built up here.

A church that is free. Free from the stringent bonds of religiosity. Free from the bonds of human interfererence in what God wants to do

Free in the power and the gifts of God.

PRAY

AMEN