Introduction
Paul’s closing words in 2 Timothy stand like a beacon at the end of his
life: “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time
for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that
day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
How did Paul reach the point where he could speak with such confidence?
The language of racing and fighting successfully suggests a life full of power
and success. Before we look more at Paul’s closing words, we turn to the
passage from Joel, which gives something that was understood to be basic to the
life of Christians in the first church in the book of Acts.
Joel 2:23-32
You know of course that these words are spoken in Acts 2, as describing
the followers of Jesus at the Day of Pentecost. But hear them first in their
own time and context. The precise dating of Joel’s prophecies is unclear. We
read that the prophecies come from Joel: “The word of the Lord that came to
Joel son of Pethuel.” And that’s it. No direct statement of when or who was
king. The three chapters refer to Judah and Jerusalem, so prophecies spoken
first in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. I am assuming that the prophecies were
spoken roughly in the middle of Judah’s history separate from Israel, and that
the crises that faced the people were the sort of problems that they faced
throughout their history—danger from their neighbours, such as Egypt to the
south and Syria to the north; and danger from within through religious and
political corruption.
God speaks to them through Joel. They are faced with potential
destruction—the locusts of chapters 1 and 2. In some way that is not obvious to
us, God works through the destruction and against the destroyers. When
destruction comes, it proves to be the catalyst for renewal—“rend your hearts and
not your garments (2:13)—which leads to God’s Spirit poured out on all people.
The presence of the Spirit is the prelude to judgment on the enemies of “Judah
and Jerusalem” and the restoration of “Judah and Jerusalem”.
As he describes the blessing of God’s Spirit and the restoration of
Judah, Joel uses terms such as “in that day”, “after this”, and
“then”—describing a time of God’s blessings that follows God’s judgment. This
time has come to refer generally to the eschaton, the end of days when God
restores creation and brings in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
So we come to the verses in our text:
23-27: After the judgment, God will restore the people’s fortunes and make
God’s person and name central to life in Israel.
28-29: This restoration leads to the full presence of God’s Spirit in all
people—old and young, men and women, on all people who serve the Lord.
30-31: This presence of the Spirit will be accompanied by miracles and signs
and wonders, bringing in “the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
32: Then God will save all those who call on God.
God promises Judah God’s Spirit for the last days. The way that this
passage is used in Acts 2 builds on the way that Jesus transformed the Jews’
expectation of the Messiah. The Jews expected a political Messiah who would
overthrow Rome and lead them to God’s reign through Israel over the whole
world. Jesus gave them a dying and rising Messiah. Jesus taught them that God’s
reign was within each person and within the new community of the church. Now at
Pentecost Peter uses Joel’s words to say that the last days had come. They had
entered the time when God reigns on the earth—but that time looked quite
different from what they expected.
We also live in the time between the beginning of God’s reign and its
coming in fullness. God’s reign began in the church through God’s Spirit
available to all people at Pentecost, and God’s reign comes fully in the return
of Jesus. We live in this already-not yet time, and we seek to live with the
power of God’s Spirit in a world that is often either unaware of God’s reign or
actively opposed to it. We need God’s power to survive. A few good miracles and
manifestations of the Spirit would encourage us a great deal.
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
Paul also lived in the
already-not yet. He could remember when they all thought that Jesus would
return really soon—in a few years at most. But the years went by, and by the time
he writes in 2 Timothy he is probably about 60 or a little older, near the end
of his life. We have two paragraphs from his letter for our text:
6-8: Paul uses the image of a war (I have fought
the good fight) and a race (I have finished the course) to say that he has
lived faithful to God and to the gospel of God. He has, in Eugene Peterson’s
phrase, practised “a long obedience in the same direction.” Now as he waits for
his death, he knows that God will receive him into the fullness of God’s reign,
which waits for all those who are faithful.
16-18: Then Paul looks towards the immediate threat.
I wonder if he was going to be on trial again and thought that this trial would
end with his death. If so, he says, he will die victorious through the grace
and strength of Christ’s presence.
Synthesis
So back to the
question: How could Paul speak with
such confidence at the end of his life? Joel promised God’s
Spirit for the last days— the already-not yet of God’s Reign. How did Paul live
so fully with God’s Spirit? How can we emulate Paul and also live filled with
God’s Spirit. For each of us, the last day comes as we approach the end of our
own lives. God’s Spirit gives us supernatural power to live in and through
situations beyond our control. How can we know this and live fully in the
Spirit and power of God?
A Thought from Joel
One might think that
Joel describes an unusual threat to Judah’s existence, but in fact this kind of
language permeates the prophets and the lives of Israel and Judah. I suggest
that the possibility of destruction was Judah’s normal state. Situated on the
crossroads of the Middle East, between competing empires from the south and
from the north, they lived in many periods of peace, but danger was never far
away.
Some countries have
been protected from invasion by geographic features—for example, England has
been protected by the Sea. Other countries have lived under constant
competition from neighbouring empires—such as the way that the Korean peninsula
has faced pressure from Japan and China throughout its history. It’s a bit like
the way that one plays the game of Risk: Asia and Europe are bad centres to
build from in the pursuit of world domination; Australia and South America are
much better. The Middle East was like Asia and Europe in Risk—a road for
invading armies to march through.
[Disclaimer: This description is my non-specialist impression. If Old
Testament scholars tell you I have it all wrong, believe them.]
Life today is also
full of danger. We look back to the 19th Century as a time of peace,
but it was also a time of empire-building, which was not peaceful to those
places brought into the European empires. We may think that the 20th
Century was relatively peaceful, but it saw two world wars, and several other
wars (such as in Korea and in Vietnam) that belie any sense that it was really
a time of peace. In the first 16 years of the 21st Century we have
seen war in the Middle East and conflicts in various other parts of the world.
Violence and conflict are more normal than we might think.
We can add to the dangers
of the world arena the stress of daily life. Although we are technologically
far more advanced than 100 years ago, we face an epidemic of family problems
and personal struggles. Clearly technological progress does not bring us to a
state of complete personal and public peace. The number of people looking for
ways to die is evidence of the struggle to live that surrounds us.
If the description of
impending disaster in Joel is more or less normal, we can guess that the
ordinary dangers of life are our path to God’s full presence. God uses the
locusts to purge Judah before God can restore Judah. God promises us also that
the Holy Spirit will be poured out on us as we face the dangers of life today.
But How?
Sometimes we turn this
question of how we receive God’s blessing around. We start asking: How can I
get this blessing? How can I gain God’s power? That’s the wrong question—like
Simon in Acts 8, who asked Peter to give him the power of the Holy Spirit. When
we start asking for power because we want to be powerful, we find that the
locusts are waiting for us.
I said earlier that a few good miracles and manifestations of the
Spirit would encourage us a great deal. The fact is that we do see manifestations
of God’s Spirit. I have not seen many wonders, but I have seen enough to know
they are real and that God is at work in our world. I remember when my wife’s
parents called us in Zimbabwe, September 1990, to tell us that Dad was dying of
cancer. We went home in December and were able to have three months that we
could visit Mom and Dad regularly. One day we were talking with my sister, and
she told us how in September she had a sense that something in our lives was
very wrong and we needed help. So she started praying. It was just at the time
that we got the call from Mom and Dad. God gave comfort and strength to deal
with the locust of death.
I remember a friend of mine 20 years ago now who sought release from the
oppression of an evil spirit. I saw him set free, and six months later he testified
that he had found continued freedom of a sort he had never known: That
experience was real! Sometimes I think that God showed me God’s power for my
friend’s benefit and for my encouragement.
A side note: As the story of Simon in Acts 8
and of the story of the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19 make the point that we
dare not try to take this power for ourselves. Emmanuel Milingo was the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Lusaka in the 1970s. He had an extensive healing
ministry. Once he was asked how to get the power to heal and cast out demons.
He said that you should never seek such power. “Unless the Holy Spirit compels
you to do this so that you cannot resist, you should not try it. If you do, the
spirits will eat you alive.” [The quote a paraphrase from memory, from The World In Between.]
I could go on, but the theme would be the same: I have seen God’s power
at work in various times and places, but God’s Spirit has never been ours to
control. God acts as God chooses, and we receive God’s power for living in a
dangerous world.
The question, however, will not go away: How? Consider Paul’s example. He
began his life pursuing God through the Law. He was a Pharisee, which means
that he was “set apart” for the Torah, the Law of God. When Jesus came to him
on the Damascus Road, he found a new source of life, and a new pursuit for his
life. In Romans 1 Paul says that he is “set apart” for the gospel. That is,
where he used to be a Pharisee for the law, he is now a Pharisee for the gospel
of God. That is why in Philippians 3 he can still call himself a Pharisee of
the Pharisees. He never stopped pursuing God; only the means changed. He
allowed Jesus to transform from the inside out through the gospel of grace. Now
he pursued God through the gospel of God’s grace.
So when Paul says he has fought the fight and finished the race, he means
that he has been faithful to this lifelong pursuit of God. In Philippians 3:
12-14 he puts it this way: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have
already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ
Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to
have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining
towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which
God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.”
How do we receive God’s power? By repentance: “Rend your hearts and not
your garments.” And by living for God, pursuing God, keeping God in Christ at
the centre of all that we think and say and do. I have been doing research on
Brethren in Christ World Missions, reading the reports sent home by
missionaries in my church 100 years ago. There are many things about these
letters that they sent regularly to our church periodical, The Evangelical Visitor. Some are disturbing, such as the
relentless reminder of the extent of a casual racism in the conversation of
that time. They refer, for example, to the boys that they work with—but those
boys were full grown adult men, worthy of the same respect as any other man.
Clearly the missionaries loved the people they worked with, but equally clearly
they were part of the colonial structure and shared the assumptions of the
colonial powers.
At the same time I observe the difficulties and hardships that they took
for granted. They walked many miles through the bush to visit the people. They
accepted the risk of dying from tropical diseases that were not well
understood. At times they put their own lives on the line to save the people
they had come to serve. Like us, they were people bound up with the problems
and blindness of their time. Like us, they became conduits of God’s power bringing
new life when the locusts pass through.
Twelve years ago, veteran CBC journalist Brian Stewart gave the
convocation address at Knox College, Toronto. He talked about how he had
assumed that the church, so weak and ineffectual, would soon disappear. He told
how, over a 40-year career in reporting, he came to realize that the church was
filled with an amazing power. He gave several examples, and then said these
words:
I rather regret that the term muscular Christianity has gone out of use,
because a lot of the Christianity I’ve seen is very hard muscular work, where
there’s lots of sweat and dirty hands. The spirit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is
alive. Many of us in news crews noticed something else hard to put into words.
So often after a day in the field filming volunteers at work, we’d be sitting
back over our nightly drink and one of us would say something like: “Strange
people those, know what I mean? There’s just something different about them.
They’ve got something that we don’t.” I believe that a form of human happiness
emerges when based on a flourishing life in which spirit and intellect are used
to the full, for the purpose of the good of all. Yes, they seemed to be “flourishing.”
C.S. Lewis wrote of Christianity producing “a good infection.” Christian work
on the front lines infects those around them, even those who are not Christian,
with a sense of Christ’s deep mystery and power. I've felt it. It changes the
world. Still.
A good infection of
power for the powerless—not just for those who go overseas or engage in
extraordinary work, but for all those who follow Christ and keep their eyes on
him to the end of their lives. Then they, and we, can say, “I have fought the
good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store
for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will
award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who long for his
appearing.”
Grace Bible Church
23 October 2016
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