Razor Planet



“STEER CLEAR: CHOOSE YOUR COMPANIONS WITH CARE”Legacy: Carving Out A Life That CountsMarch 3, 2013Cornerstone Community ChurchA motivational author and speaker named Charlie Jones – whose nickname was “Tremendous” because his best-selling book was titled “Life Is Tremendous” – once said this: “Five years from today, you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” It’s a bit of an overstatement, of course, but I doubt any of us would dispute the fact that the greatest influence on our lives is other people. People inspire us, and people drag us down. For good or for bad, you and I are who we are largely because of the people we’ve allowed to shape our character, our values and our beliefs.Which means that we need to choose our companions with great care. Now to some extent, this is out of our control. We don’t, for example, get to pick our parents or grandparents or brothers and sisters, all of whom play a significant role in our lives. My parents also reminded me when I was younger and would voice some complaint about the family that they didn’t get to pick me either. We don’t get to pick our elementary school teachers. We don’t get to pick the kids who sit next to us in class. Then there’s the kid who, because of the spelling of his last name, is always next to you in line, from the first day of kindergarten until the day you get handed your diploma at high school graduation. We don’t get to pick our co-workers. We don’t get to pick who moves into the house next to ours. But we do get to pick a large percentage of the people who are the most influential people in our lives. We get to pick our marriage partner. We get to pick our close friends. (And most importantly, we get to pick who we’re going to follow on Twitter.) So if we’re trying to leave a legacy we’re proud of, if we’re trying to carve out a life that counts, and if it’s true that the people we partner with shape to a significant degree who we are and who we’re becoming, then it just stands to reason that we need to choose our companions with care.Our text for this morning is 2 Timothy 3:1-13. If you’ve been with us the last few weeks, you will remember that this letter is the last letter the Apostle Paul wrote before he was beheaded by the Romans. Timothy – the person to whom this letter was written – was Paul’s protégé, and was the pastor of the church at Ephesus at the time of the writing of this letter. Here’s how Paul starts this section of his letter:But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)Now we’re going to spend most of our time talking about two main ideas this morning: (1) What kind of people should we steer clear of; and (2) What kind of people should we stay close to? But before we get to those points, there are a couple of questions that jump out at us from these first five verses that we need to address. The first question is this – Why is Paul bothering to tell us what people will be like in the last days? If he’s going to tell us who to steer clear of and who to stay close to, shouldn’t he be telling us what people are like right now? Why start out by warning us that there will be terrible times “in the last days”?That’s a pretty natural question to ask. And fortunately Paul gives us a clue to the answer right in these same verses. Notice how he ends this paragraph: “Have nothing to do with them.” Why would Paul tell Timothy to have nothing to do with people who won’t even be around until the last days? And the answer is that this makes no sense unless Timothy is already living in the last days. And now you’re thinking, “Wait a minute. Timothy lived in the first century; that’s 2,000 years ago. Clearly those weren’t the last days. So what gives?” So here’s the answer. The writers of the Bible often referred to the entire time period from the time of Jesus until the end of human history as “the last days.” Let me give you just one example. Some of you are familiar with what’s called the Day of Pentecost, a day described in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first followers of Jesus and as a result those followers began to speak in other languages. The Apostle Peter got up and gave a speech to explain to the people of Jerusalem what was going on, because it all seemed pretty weird. And in his speech Peter quoted from the Old Testament prophet Joel; here’s the passage he quoted: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17) And what does Peter say about that quote? He says, “Folks, what you see is what Joel said would happen in the last days. What Joel predicted would happen in the last days is happening right here and now in front of your eyes.”So when Paul writes in 2 Timothy that “in the last days” there will be terrible times, and then goes on to describe a bunch of people that live in Ephesus right then and there, he’s using the phrase “in the last days” in the same way that Peter and other biblical writers were, to refer to the entire period of time from the time of Jesus to the end of human history. Now just to make this more confusing, there are times when the biblical writers use the same phrase – “the last days” – to refer to a future time when human history is almost up. And the only way to know how they’re using that phrase is by the context. Here in 2 Timothy it’s pretty easy. Paul says, “In the last days there will be all sorts of terrible people.” And then he says, “Steer clear of those people.” That makes it pretty easy for us; it’s quite clear that Paul is using the phrase “the last days” in the same way Peter used it, to describe a very long period of time. But there’s another question that I think is a much more important question that jumps out at us from this text, and it’s this – “Are we really supposed to steer completely clear of everyone with a questionable character? After all, everyone has their flaws; are we supposed to avoid everybody? And what about Jesus – wasn’t he called ‘a friend of sinners’? Aren’t we supposed to do the same thing? Aren’t we supposed to share the good news of the Gospel with people? How can we do that and at the same time have nothing to do with people?”I think those are good questions. Take a look at some of the people Paul says to steer clear of – people who are “disobedient to their parents”, and people who are “unforgiving.” I have a hunch that everyone who has ever lived has disobeyed their parents and has been unforgiving. So is Paul serious about this? Does he really want us to steer clear of these people? Because if he does, we’ve got to live by ourselves.Let me show you something else Paul wrote that helps us understand what he’s getting at here in 2 Timothy. This is from the book of 1 Corinthians; here’s what Paul writes on this topic there:I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)And that makes a little more sense, doesn’t it? Yes, it’s still a bit drastic, a bit harsh. But at least Paul clarifies for us which people he’s talking about. He’s talking, both in 1 Corinthians and in 2 Timothy, about people who claim to be followers of Jesus but who are anything but. In 2 Timothy Paul uses this phrase to describe these folks – “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” Jesus used a particular word to describe this kind of person; do you remember what it was? Hypocrites. And do you remember who Jesus called hypocrites? It was the Pharisees, the religious scholars, the men whose religion was their profession. According to Jesus, the Pharisees were hypocrites because they knew quite well what was right and what was wrong, and they even did a nice job of teaching right and wrong to their students. But when it came to practicing what they preached, they were complete failures. And while Jesus spent time talking to the Pharisees and answering their questions, you’ll notice when you read through the Gospels that Jesus didn’t hang out with the Pharisees. They weren’t in his inner circle. They weren’t companions of Jesus. Jesus was called a friend of sinners, but he was never called a friend of Pharisees.So here again is the big point – choose your companions with care. Here’s what I mean. Every one of us should have friends who aren’t Christians. In fact, we should have lots of friends who aren’t Christians, just like Jesus did. But the people who are going to be our companions, the people who we’re going to invite into our lives to influence us and to shape us, the people we’re going to be the closest to – those people are going to be followers of Jesus. Why? Because those are the people who share our values, our priorities and our beliefs. If people are the primary shapers of our character, then we want to be close to people who are going to shape us in ways we want to be shaped. We want people who are going to influence us to love Jesus more. We want people who are going to influence us to be honest, to be generous, to be disciplined. And we don’t want to be influenced to say one thing and to do another; we don’t want a hypocrite to influence us to be hypocritical ourselves.For the rest of this morning, I’m going to come at this whole topic from a little different angle to make this as personal and meaningful as I can. I’m going to come at it from the perspective of a father giving dating and marriage advice to his kids. All through their growing up years I’ve always told my kids this: “After deciding whether or not to follow Jesus, the most important decision you’re going to make in your life isn’t where you go to college or what job to pursue or where to live – it’s who you marry. The person you marry will have more of an impact on your life than anything else.” And I believe that now more than ever. You’ve heard me say over and over again how challenging these last two years have been for me physically and emotionally. And I have told this to everyone who would listen to me – I would have been lost these last two years without my wife. I would not have survived … and I mean that quite literally. So I pray even more than I used to for my two youngest kids that God would lead them in his time to just the right person to be their partner. I want them to have the kind of partner I have, and to have the kind of partner my oldest daughter has in her husband. And I’m sure you who are parents feel the same way about your kids, and those of you who are grandparents feel the same about your grandkids. And then there’s the 45% of the adult population in San Jose that is single. Not all of them want to get married, but those who do most certainly don’t want to make a mistake in picking a mate. If you want to carve out a life that counts, who you choose to be your partner will go a significant way in either helping you or hurting you.People To Steer Clear OfSo let’s look again at Paul’s description of people to steer clear of from that perspective, from the perspective of a parent giving dating advice to their kids. This topic is also on my mind because I went through a book with one of our Cornerstone kids who is now out on his own and is in this phase of deciding who to date and who to marry. He’s one of my very favorite young men from our church. The book we went through is called “Am I The One? Clues To Finding & Becoming A Person Worth Marrying.” Chapter 7 of this book, interestingly enough, is titled “Twelve Problem People To Avoid.” And as I was looking back through this book it struck how very much this chapter sounded like what Paul is telling Timothy in the letter we’re studying. Let me give you an example. In 2 Timothy Paul tells Timothy to have nothing to do with people who are “abusive” or who are “rash.” The first of the twelve problem people this book on dating and marriage tells us to avoid is the angry person. Here’s the example he uses:Allison told two of her friends that she was already dreaming about being married to Nick. But Allison was secretly worried about Nick’s temper. He blew up in traffic and pounded on the steering wheel while calling other drivers names – sometimes foul ones … If she was a few minutes late, he would fume and make cutting remarks. Sometimes he would stay mad the entire evening.So parents, what would you tell your daughter if that’s the man she wanted to marry? I hope you would sit down with her and have a talk about this, that you would encourage her to take this issue seriously. You might even share this verse with her from the Old Testament book of Proverbs: “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared.” (Proverbs 22:24-25) Paul also warns Timothy to have nothing to do with people who are lovers of money, people who are greedy. Now I do want my kids to marry someone who is responsible with money, someone who takes finances seriously. But have you ever known someone who was just overtly materialistic? It’s not an endearing quality, is it? Years ago we had some friends who frankly were a good match because they were both very focused on their things, but who were really not much fun to be around because the conversation always centered around what they just bought. Here’s how extreme it was. Brenda had just given birth to one of our kids so she called this friend to share the good news, and I was there with her in the hospital room listening to their conversation. It didn’t sound like a conversation in that situation would normally go, because instead of Brenda telling her friend about our new baby she spent most of this ten-minute conversation just listening. So I thought that our friend must have had some pretty important news to tell us about, something much more important than the birth of a baby. When Brenda got off the phone I asked her, “What’s up? What was she talking about?” Do you know what was so important? She had just bought some new dishes, and she wanted to describe how they looked and, of course, how much they cost.That’s not the kind of person I want my kids to marry. And that’s not the kind of person I want shaping my character. I need other people to shape me and challenge me and inspire me and encourage me. But I don’t want to be shaped in that way. So what does Paul tell Timothy? I know it sounds harsh, but here’s what he says: “Have nothing to do with such people.”Now let me add this comment. I think Timothy’s situation was unique. Timothy is trying to pastor his church and he has this contingent of individuals who claim to be Christians but who really aren’t who are trying to pull Timothy’s church members away from the truth. You get a better sense of who these guys are in the next verse in 2 Timothy, where after saying “have nothing to do with such people” Paul describes these people more vividly: “They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women …” (2 Timothy 3:6) These are some really bad guys with particularly bad motives, and so it makes sense that Paul tells Timothy to have nothing to do with them.So how does this apply to us? I don’t think it means that we cut off all contact with our materialistic friends or our angry friends. But we don’t make them our close companions. We don’t partner with them in life. We don’t allow them to influence us to adopt their negative character qualities. And if we do find ourselves becoming like them in those ways, then maybe we do need to put some distance between us, at least until we’re strong enough not to be infected by their diseased attitudes. There is a time to simply steer clear.People To Stay Close ToAnd more positively, there are certain people we want to stay close to. After telling Timothy who to steer clear of, Paul goes on to use himself as an example of the kind of people we want to stay close to, the kind of person we want to model our lives after, the kind of person we want to have as a partner and a close companion. Here’s what Paul writes:You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings – what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:10-13) Paul is intentionally contrasting his life with the lives of the false teachers he’s been warning Timothy to steer clear of. They are hypocrites; they say they believe one thing, but their lives don’t reflect it. But Timothy had known Paul for 15 years and had seen in him in all sorts of circumstances. He knew Paul was different. For one thing, he knew Paul was authentic. He knew Paul wasn’t pretending to be someone he wasn’t, that Paul wasn’t hiding anything about himself from Timothy. And by the way, isn’t that a quality you want in a person you’re going to get close to, whether it’s a person you date and later marry or someone whose going to be a close friend? Clearly that’s the kind of person you want to stay close to, someone you are glad to have shape your own life – someone who is authentic.Here’s another thing about Paul that made him a person to stay close to – hewas very clear about his purpose in life. Would you agree that if you’re going to follow someone that you want to follow someone who knows where he’s going? Have you ever been in an unfamiliar place and stopped to ask someone directions, and very quickly gotten the sense that the person giving you directions really wasn’t sure what he or she was talking about? What do you do? You thank that person for their time, forget everything they just told you, and go ask someone else. Timothy found in Paul someone who knew where he was going in life, who had a clear sense of direction, someone who understood his purpose. And here’s how Paul expressed his purpose: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24) That’s the kind of person you want to stay close to. That’s the kind of person I want my kids to marry, someone who has a clear sense of their purpose in life as a follower of Jesus.We don’t have time to develop all the qualities Paul lists, but I want to be sure we notice these three that Paul lists together – his endurance, his persecutions and his sufferings. Now I’m not saying I tell my kids to look for someone to marry who’s in a lot of pain, or to look for someone who is being persecuted. But what I do want them to look for in a mate is someone who believes in his or her principles so strongly that he’s willing to take some heat for them. Find someone with some backbone, someone who will hang in there for what he believes is right even when things get really tough. Find someone who has demonstrated that ability to endure, the ability to persevere in times of hardship. Because the truth is this – sooner or later, you as a couple will face tough times. One or both of you are going to get sick. If you have kids together, your kids are going to challenge your endurance in a million ways. You’re going to have job challenges and financial challenges. So you need someone by your side who has the strength to handle some suffering and hardship, someone who will endure, someone who will hang tough with you through thick or thin.And that’s the kind of person we all want to stay close to; that’s the kind of person we want as a companion, the kind of person we want shaping our lives and hearts. So find those people, and then make them your closest friends. Invite them into your life and give them permission to challenge you and to inspire you.I mentioned the book I went through with a friend of mine called “Am I The One? Clues To Finding & Becoming A Person Worth Marrying.” One thing I especially like about the book is that before the author spends much time talking about how to find the right person he focuses on how to become the right person. And as we read this morning about the kind of people to steer clear of and the kind of people to stay close to, I hope we all realize the bigger point – that we become the right kind of people ourselves. The people Paul says to steer clear of – we want to be sure we aren’t those kind of people. And the example of a person to stay close to that Paul models – we want to be sure we become that kind of a person. So let’s commit to doing just that, and let’s surround ourselves with people who will help us in our journey. ................
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