MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Invest In Someone Else
to officially call the creeping crud. (audience laughing) And I do have, I took my cough medicine. I had my cough drop and Dale, our sound guy, and I have Q, so when I cough, he's got, you ready, Dale? Mute button for me, so. (audience laughing) Aren't you a lot of technology? So awesome. Well, good morning. It's great to be here with you. This is the first time I've been upright this long for several days, so it actually is quite refreshing. The world looks very different when you're, anyway. All right, enough about that. So I hope that was fun for you to think about the people who invested in your life, who made a difference, who impacted you spiritually without whom you would not be, who and where you are today. As I was thinking about this, two people came to mind in my life and so I wanna just share those people with you. The first, this is Evelyn Johnson and I, first of all, I wanna apologize for the pixelated image that we have here. I pulled this off the internet and it wasn't the best resolution. But you may recognize Evelyn. Evelyn is the former superintendent of our denomination-specific Southwest Conference. She is now working with the president of our denomination, Gary Walter, as his director of special projects, which basically means I think that she gets to do whatever fun things that she wants. I mean, doesn't that a great title, director of special projects? Could be anything. She was the first woman to serve as a conference superintendent in our denomination. She's given leadership to students. She served as a minister of education and a pastor of spiritual formation in two different churches. She served as the associate dean of external programming. She's the author of one book co-author of another and her life mission is to inspire, encourage and equip people to discover and use their gifts. Now, Evelyn and I met when I was serving in a church in Arizona and there was just something that clicked between the two of us. And Evelyn has just really invested in my life in many ways. She's now in Chicago, but she's one of those people that I know that if I needed something, I needed vice, whatever, I can just contact Evelyn and she will be there for me. And she's really encouraged me, especially as a woman in ministry to be bold and use my gifts and move forward into the life that God has for me. Now, this next person, this is Doug Brenda. You don't know Doug because Doug isn't a covenanter. Doug is though the second person that I wanna list here as one of my spiritual investors. Doug is a teaching pastor and a speaker. He's also an actor and this second picture, he recently did a one man show called Vincent, which is about the life of Vincent Van Gogh and he played a Vincent's brother Teo in that show. So that kind of explains some of that, but truthfully Doug usually does look like this. He lives in a little town in Massachusetts. He's a writer, he's written books. He has a column with his local town paper. He also does fundraising letters and brochures and those kinds of things. And he heads up a ministry called New Thing where he serves people in need both in the United States and in of all places, Belarus, which is one of the few countries of the former Soviet Union that is really still tightly controlled. Religion is still a kind of a state overseen thing. And so the fact that he has a ministry in that place is amazing. He serves in partnership with local churches and they invest heavily into institutions like orphanages and hospitals and places like that that really need help and support. Both of these people are my spiritual investors. Without them, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't serve God in the way that I do. And I think it's really important that we not only remember these individuals, but we recognize these relationships of spiritual investment. That's what we're going to talk about today as we move into Timothy. But I'd like to pray first for us and then we'll get into today's verses. Father, we come to you with open hands and open heart. Ready to hear what it is that you want us to know. What is your purpose here, Lord, today? Speak it into our hearts as we review and rediscover this kind of relationship of spiritual investment. So wonderfully given to us in the example of Paul and Timothy. Thank you, Lord, for your presence, for the opportunity for us to be together this morning. We love you. And we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. So we started this new series on First Timothy a couple of weeks ago. And I want you to know, I'm so excited about the approach that your pastors decided to take. Instead of being tied to a certain kind of progression through the book or being limited by looking for certain themes and then following those themes all the way through. They've just decided that we're going to take this leisurely stroll through this book. And it reminds me of being able to take a hike or a walk when you don't really have time limitations. And so if you see something off on the side of the road, you can kind of, oh, let's go over there and look. What is that? Or you see a beautiful view. You can stop and appreciate it. You can climb the heavy rocks if you want. You can rest. Just that whole appreciation of everything that's brought. And I feel kind of like that's what's happening with First Timothy. So I think it's a pretty exciting way to see what we're going to find and where this is going to take us. Today, we're going to come specifically to verse two of the first chapter. Do you love that? We've been in this series. This is our third Sunday in this series. And we're on verse two of chapter one. That is leisurely. But I think it also speaks to something that we should remember about scripture. Sometimes we read scripture and we're waiting for that big, meaty, momentous, significant thing. But all of scripture has great insight and revelation for us if we just take the time to appreciate it and see what's there. So here we are. First Timothy 1, 2, and it says this. To Timothy, my true son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Now you'll remember last week we did verse one. And we only did one word out of that. But it was about how sending the letter. And now we've come to whom the letter is for. And I think, I don't know. Sometimes when I send emails, don't even say hi, Jane. I just start talking. But this is a little more formal. Do you remember your school? The parts of the letter. We're in this allutation. And what's really important in this-- I'm going to pull more than one word-- is this phrase, my true son in the faith. That's what we're going to focus on today. What does that mean? What does it mean to be in relationship that way with somebody? Paul and Timothy did have a special relationship for sure. They traveled together for many years. Paul met Timothy on his second visit to Lystra. And I think there was just this moment, again, of where there's just something that happened between the two of them. And they recognized kindred spirits. Paul recognized somebody who longed for someone to be pouring their life into them. And Timothy recognized somebody who was willing to do that, to pour into him, invest in him. So Timothy traveled with Paul a lot. And during this time, he was mentored by Paul, especially in the areas of Christian leadership and pastoring or shepherding churches. So in this case, Timothy's in this church in Ephesus. And frankly, things aren't going fabulously. He's having some struggles with this congregation. And so Paul writes this letter to Timothy to encourage him and also, frankly, to remind him of who he is, of the things that Paul's already taught him, of his leadership. And probably this letter will be read out loud, so he's also going to remind the congregation of who Timothy is. Last week, Art talked about-- it's time to-- Art talked about this idea of apostle. And that word, apostle, carries a lot of authority. So Paul is saying I'm an apostle of Christ by his command. And he's also reminding Timothy and the church that this authority has kind of been passed on to Timothy through this. Now, while this relationship-- and that's, by the way, all I'm going to give you really about that, except for some other things. So you can go to Jeff afterwards if the haven't even met, and he's going to give you the big history. He's got so much. Do you know how hard that is when a pastor has all the stuff that they want to say? And then they don't get to say it. Have you ever seen pastor Art when he comes back from a trip, and he's been gone for a few weeks, and he cannot stop talking to you? He loves you so much. He has so much to give you, and he hasn't been able to. That's a really hard thing. So feel for your brother, Jeff, because he was struggling. So while this relationship that we see between Paul and Timothy is really special, it's very deep. It's very significant. We really need to not think of it as being unique. At least it's not intended to be unique. It may be a little bit, but it's not supposed to be. It's a relationship that we should see as normal in our Christian lives. You know, we did that series a while back when we talked about what is normal. This is one of those things that's normal. This kind of relationship of spiritual investment in somebody, it's normal. And it's also-- it demonstrates that Christianity is a faith that's generational. It's passed on from generation to generation. Look at this. In Ecclesiastes 4, we find this scripture. I observed yet another example of something meaningless under the sun. This is a case of a person who is all alone without a child or a sibling yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, who am I working for? Although these verses specifically talk about tangible wealth, tangible fruit, I think that we could also apply them to this other kind of situation. I think they demonstrate that we are supposed to be in invested relationships. It's meaningless not to have somebody to pass on not only your physical, tangible wealth, but your spiritual wealth as well. We're meant to invest in other people. Our life's work is meant to be something of value that we can pass on to them. And because God loves us so much, because he's invited us to partner with him in his work, it makes perfect sense that we should love and care for and invest in each other. Now, this is, of course, something that comes from following Christ by being obedient to him and seeking to be more like him. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1, 1, that he served, as I said before, by the command of Christ. So if we look at Christ's life, we find that he certainly invested in others to need. He had his disciples whom he taught, and he commanded them then to go out and teach themselves. You can see this pattern of investment, and then that investment being passed on again. Faith is relational. It's something that's shared within the environs of a personal relationship, a personal connection. God's created us to be relational, to share our faith experience and wisdom with other people. And it is clear that Christianity is to be passed on from one person to the next. Finally, scripture is also clear that these relationships are beneficial to everybody involved, not just the spiritual child, the men T, as it were, but for the mentor as well. If you read further in Ecclesiastes 4, we find this. We find that two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If they fall down, they can help each other up. But pity those who fall and have no one to help them up. And then Proverbs 27, 17 tells us, and many of us are familiar with this verse, aren't we? As sharpens iron, one person sharpens another. And Paul himself in Romans says this, Romans 1, for I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you and your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours. So you can see this mentoring relationship or partnership is a normal expectation of Christian life. And there is mutual blessing and joy, both given and received. I think often though, we modern day Christians, and especially those of us who are involved in the Western evangelical expression of Christianity, find these kinds of relationships really difficult. They're difficult to establish and they're difficult to maintain. There are lots of reasons for this. I mean, our culture has a real focus on individuality, doesn't it? We're told that God helps those who helps themselves. I'm doing this a lot today, sorry. And some of us for a while may have thought that was in the Bible, that sounds scriptural, God helps those who help themselves. It's not, just so you know. You've heard it here. We're also told that we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. And we love stories of people who've gotten it all together and we can see them and they're bright and shiny and they can match their clothes, their pants and their socks. But we do not. Do not want to admit or even think about the fact that maybe we don't have it all together, that we aren't there yet. That's not something that we like to think about. Plus, I think that Protestant Christianity, which gave us this great gift of understanding that we could have a personal relationship with God, a direct relationship with God without having to go through the mediator of the priest or some other kind of church leaderships or praying to the saints so they would talk to God for us. It gave us that gift, but the other thing that happened, I think, may have been that the idea of spiritual mentorship got set aside as well. God helps those who help themselves. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I think the idea of discipleship has really become one of, this is how I'm growing spiritually. These are the devotions that I use. This is where I go to church. This is my small group. These are the books that I'm reading, but they're all me by myself, right? But that's not necessarily what discipleship is meant to be. And finally, I think the competitive aspects of our society also lead to this. I mean, frankly, why would I wanna mentor someone and give away all of my wisdom and my experience and my skills? Because wisdom and skill in our culture translates to power and I'm giving away my power. But then we have to look at Jesus and we see that in his mentorship and his discipling of his inner circle, he said, very truly I tell you all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these. Jesus was fine with his disciples performing greater miracles bringing more people to know God. That was fine with him. I didn't mind giving away his power at all, did he? So we need to be aware that that may be a tendency in us and kind of set it aside. Because this is unfortunately an unfamiliar relationship for us, I'd like to go through some of the aspects of what it looks like to be in this kind of Paul Timothy spiritual investment relationship. So first of all, a spiritual mentoring relationship requires availability. And there are two important kinds of availability that I think we need to have. First of all, an open schedule. An open schedule, is there room in your schedule for some kind of investment relationship? Take a look at your calendar and how you're spending your time. Are there places you could do a little pruning to open up some time for that? And let me just say right now, there are some of you in this room who are parents of little bitty people. I get that bend there. And it's very likely that the people you're supposed to be investing in right now are the ones that are crawling around your feet and tying your shoelaces, pulling all the pots and pans out of the cabinet and creating mountains of dirty laundry for you to work with. That's probably the people that you need to talk to or that you need to be investing in. And by the way, our pastor Ben has written a wonderful book on how to invest in your children spiritually. It's a really fun book. It's a really great book. And frankly, even if you don't have little, little ones, this book is really helpful. It gives you great ways to be able to invest when you don't think you have any time, when you feel stressed. This is a marvelous book. We have some for sale back on the table. You can buy it on Amazon. I'm sure if you ask Ben, he will autograph it for you and then it'll be just so valuable. Now this is my copy. Go get one back there. Tristan, bring a book up. Jeff wants to give one away. Jeff, there it is. I want you to give it to someone who looks tired. (audience laughs) Like they aren't sleeping much at night. Oh, nice. Yeah, you can't have my copy. Real Ben 10-5, yes. Yeah, really. And by the way, if you are one of these parental people, you desperately need a mentor. So what you need to do is create some kind of a parent swap situation with another family so that you can get out every couple of weeks for an hour in a coffee shop and sit across the table from someone who only wants to invest in you. You deserve it, you need to find that. So there's my words for you, parents. But spiritual investment doesn't only require an open schedule. Spiritual investment relationships require an open heart. Are you available for this kind of a relationship? If you are someone who should be mentoring people, is your heart tender for someone else? Do you feel drawn to somebody to be able to invest and pour into their lives? And if you're someone who's looking for a mentor, are you willing to hear? Are you willing to receive wisdom and maybe correction and work hard? 'Cause that's what's required, you need an open heart. All right, secondly, developing a relation of spiritual investment requires awareness. We need to be aware of the people that God is putting in our path, whether it's for them to be mentors for us or for them to be mentored by us. We need to open our eyes and see who's there. Is there someone in your life that you admire for their spiritual maturity and depth? Have you thought that maybe if I could be more like them, my life of faith would be enriched and grown? Maybe they're supposed to be mentoring you. Or maybe you are feeling drawn towards someone who's younger in the faith that you would like to invest in, somebody you could really believe in and support and encourage over a long-term relationship. You know, I know when Paul met Timothy, that's what happened. He looked at this young man and he said, "Oh, I recognize who this guy could be and I want to help him get there. And I want to be his friend. I want to hang out with him." So there's that. On the other hand, I think it's really important for us to realize that not everyone we meet is someone that God's put in our path to be part of a spiritual investment relationship. You know, that great spiritual leader that you met at Pastor Arch two weeks ago? Just because they were there and they're fabulous doesn't necessarily mean that God was saying, "They're going to be your mentor now." But maybe they will put there to give you the idea that you do need a mentor. And just because your son's best friend when he came over for lunch last Saturday, mentioned casually that he sometimes has questions about God doesn't mean that you are called to mentor him. Doesn't mean you aren't either. But these kind of relationships are things that need to be processed carefully with prayer and thought and discernment. So just know, not everybody's there for that. Thirdly, a relationship of spiritual investment requires alignment. Of course, we would say it requires an alignment with Christ and his purposes. Now, I did put an asterisk here because it may be that people who are coming into our mentoring relationship to be mentored aren't committed to Christ yet. Many scholars think that when Timothy and Paul first met, Timothy didn't know Jesus, that he wasn't already a Christ follower and that Paul brought him to know the Lord. So that may be appropriate for someone who's being mentored. But certainly we would say, if you're mentoring someone spiritually, I hope, I ask and expect that you are in alignment with Christ and his purposes and his values, completely committed to him. But there's another important area of alignment and that's mutual values and passions. You know, when I look at the relationships I have with Evelyn and with Doug, it's really clear that I share with each of them certain focuses and passions. With Evelyn, I share a strong interest. In the covenant denomination, we both value that highly. And of course, for supporting women in vocational ministry and for investing in others in a way that, as she said to me once, gives me the ability to set the stage on which other people shine. That's what Evelyn does and that's something that is really important to me as well. With Doug, I share a love for the written word, for arts, especially performing arts and for helping facilitate the creative expression of individual's faith, faith journeys. So these shared interests and values, along with, of course, our mutual love for Jesus and our desire to see as kingdom manifested, that's what made those relationships be something that are so fruitful. Sorry, I've done so well, not coughing. Close now. All right, I gotta move fast. The fourth thing, a relationship with spiritual investment requires is acknowledgement and acceptance. Especially as mentors, we need to be aware of our gifts, our strengths and our weaknesses. We need to be conscious of what we bring to the table and what we don't. How God's designed us and who we are. Can you get me some water? Thank you. Love having my daughter in the front row. Just make her do stuff. We need to see our mentees accurately as well. We need to see them as Christ sees them. Not only for who they are today, but who Jesus is making them into. That's an important part of this awareness and acceptance. The cough drops last 43 minutes, that's right. Mentors need to have a deep understanding of their mentees' ideal self. That's a gift. And it's something that's required for a fruitful relationship. And if we're being mentored, we need to recognize that our mentors are human beings. They aren't perfect. They have great wisdom to impart. They have great strengths, but they do have weaknesses. They're going to make mistakes. They don't know everything. And that's an important piece to understanding and living into these relationships of spiritual investment. Which leads us to our next characteristic, which is that of authenticity. In relationships like these, we need to be transparent. We need to be willing to share our wisdom as mentors to give that away. And as we are mentored, we need to be willing to receive. We don't know it all. We need to be willing to share our doubts. No matter which side of the table we sit on. And we need to admit that we have made mistakes and are likely to do it again. We need to share our joys and our sorrows, our epiphanies and discoveries, our questions, our doubts. And like I said, our mistakes. Mentors need to be willing to admit when they're wrong or when they don't know something. Metis need to acknowledge and express their confusion or even discomfort, disagreement, with certain aspects of faith. Let's face it, we all know following Christ isn't easy. And we need to recognize that and live into the truth of that. We all struggle and we all need encouragement just as we saw Paul mentioned in Romans. Leaving out this authenticity, this part of a spiritual mentorship is going to leave out some of the richest and most impactful parts that will come out of this. Wrestling together with faith deepens and strengthens it. It doesn't damage it as long as it's grounded in a mutual transparency and trust. Finally, and that's the word that means ban, you can come back up. Amen, a relationship of spiritual investment requires accountability. There needs to be a mutual agreement that this relationship is centered around Christ and that we're moving together to become more like him. And there also needs to be an agreement that we're working together to help accomplish God's purposes and establish his kingdom in this world. After all, that is what this is all about, right? We're in partnership with God to help him complete his work of redeeming and transforming of all of creation. It's like adding links to a chain, one by one, one by one, they connect. This historic generational faith is built and passed on. And God is so good. He knows that we are made to need relationship. We long for relationship with other tangible flesh and blood human beings. One of my favorite singer-songwriters is Aaron S.B., and he expressed that need in this song, a song he has called Faith in Doubt, and this is just a little piece of it. He says, "But right now I can't pray. "I don't feel like talking to God. "I need somebody out there with a little skin on them. "I need somebody out there with a little skin on them." Yeah, we do. Sometimes, and sometimes what we need is to sit across the table from someone who is committed to our spiritual growth. Sometimes we need to literally give a pat on the back or receive one and to be embraced in a hug. Since we are at present separated from Christ in it, that is in his flesh and blood body, God's provided a way that even that need can be met through relationships with each other. And in terms of faith, one of the best and most significant ways that this happens is through these spiritual-investment relationships. One writer puts it like this. Essentially, Christian faith is communicated from one life to another as the person who knows its reality and power shares life with the person in need of faith by which to live. God seeks to transform human life through dedicated men and women who accept his gracious life and become the instruments of his creative and redemptive power. We're in covenant, church. Let's be those people. Let's live that life. And then, let's give it away to the rest of the world. (gentle music)