Living With Purpose

My name is Renee, one of the pastors here and a dad. And I want to start with this sort of in honor of the dads here. Two days ago this last Friday night I'm watching the Giants game with my kids and we see this Father's Day oriented commercial starring Jim Harbaugh, head coach of our beloved San Francisco 49ers. And maybe some of you dads here can relate to this. Watch the screen. Hi, I'm Sarah Harbaugh, wife of professional football coach and former star quarterback Jim Harbaugh. And I'd like to talk to you about a serious condition affecting countless men in our country. I'm talking of course about dad pants. The shapeless, pleaded tragedy that too many men find themselves in every day. I was there. My handsome, vibrant, successful football coach of a husband suddenly looked like he'd hung the curtains from his belt. Thankfully, Dockers has discovered the antidote for dad pants. Since Jim started wearing Dockers, he's a whole new man. Mommy, who's that? That's your dad. If you or a man in your life are living with dad pants, I urge you to visit Dockers.com/StopDadPants. Is that awesome or what? I love that. Am I wearing dad pants right now? Now I'm completely self-conscious.

But listen, that's a really funny commercial. But underneath that is sort of, you could say, kind of a sinister truth. Follow me here. And that is that in our society there are actually a lot of cultural forces telling all of us dads. How many dads do we have here? Show of hands here. There are forces in our culture telling you guys to be a really good dad, to be really cool dad, to be a real real man. Here is what you've got to wear. Here's what you got to look like. Here's what you got to do for a living. Here's what you got to drive. Here's how much you got to earn. Here's the ambitions you have to have in life. And it can put so much pressure on us trying to please all these different forces. And ultimately we realize, we wake up one day and go, I don't really even know what I'm living for personally. Because I'm trying to obey, you know, everybody's telling me don't wear dad pants or don't, you know, do this or don't do that.

The good news is this morning we're going to look at what the Bible has to say about truly living a life of purpose. Grab your message notes that look like this as we continue our series called Strong Grace. This is what we call our verse by verse series through the book of 2 Timothy in the Bible. And these message notes right on your bulletin are going to help you follow along. And let me orient you to this book if you're just joining us for the summer this way. I want you to imagine this. You are on a plane trip and the pilot comes on the intercom and he says, uh folks, uh I got some uh good news and I got some bad news. Let me start with the bad news. All four of our engines are on fire and there's no chance for survival. The plane's going to go down in a couple of minutes so we all looks like we got a couple of minutes to live. But now the good news for the duration of the flight we'd like to offer you free wi-fi. And so if you'd like to go online right now it's on us go ahead and shoot an email out to perhaps a loved one and share with them your parting thoughts.

Now let me just ask you this is completely theoretical. I hope this never happens to you. But what if it did? Who would you send that final email to? If you knew that you only had this much left of your life, who would you send a final missive, a final letter to? I want you to not just make this theoretical. I want you to put that, see where it says "to" in your message notes? I want you actually to write down a name and it may be your mom, maybe your son or daughter, maybe the Soquel Creek Water District Board of Directors. I don't know who it might be but you can go ahead and write that down there. And then what would you say to them? I mean I hope you'd say I love you but if you could sort of share some wisdom for living life kind of like you know I got two minutes I just got to tell you make sure you always do this or make sure you have this perspective or I want to share with you just what's on my heart. These are the top three things I want you to remember for the rest of your life. Right before I go what would you say?

Now I'm not going to give you time right now to jot that down of course in the box but I hope you actually write that down later on today. It's a great exercise because of then of course I want you to actually do that. I want you to write some emails to your loved ones and say you know what if I should ever go suddenly what I want you to really remember are these five things or these four things. Now there's another reason I bring up this theoretical exercise and it's this the scene I just described to you that is 2 Timothy chapter 4. Because in 2 Timothy chapter 4 this is the last chapter of the last letter that the apostle Paul ever wrote in his life and he is dashing it off because he is in a prison cell and he knows he's about to be executed by Caesar Nero and he thinks to himself who am I going to write one last note one last letter to and he decides I'm going to ship it off to my favorite person in the world my beloved son in the Lord Timothy.

A lot of historians in fact think that Timothy didn't have a father he was a single parent child because Paul mentions his mom and mentions his grandma but doesn't mention is his dad and and Timothy is Paul's spiritual son and in fact could have almost been his adopted son Paul really has his father-son relationship with Timothy so this is especially appropriate to look at on Father's Day and he says Timothy I'm about to die and so here are the four things I want you to remember for the rest of your life and you can tell in chapter 4 he knows he's coming to the end he's coming to the end of his time he's coming to the end of the parchment and he's saying I just want you to remember these four things in order to really live a life of purpose and here's why these things are important to you and me they're important to dads because of all that societal pressure that I talked about earlier but they're important to sons and daughters and moms and every single person here because would you agree with this it is so easy to get distracted from the purpose in life that God has for us right and so that's why you and I all need to remember how to live with purpose and I want you to jot these things down.

Number one Paul says keep an eternal perspective keep an eternal perspective. He says Timothy all the stuff that we tend to cling to and love down here not much of it's going to last so if you really want to live a great life a life of impact a life that's going to make a difference a life of purpose a life that doesn't get distracted you need to live with an eternal perspective that starts right there in verse 1 of chapter 4 in the presence of God and by the way stop right there where is Paul when he's writing this where that's not what he says he says he's in the presence of God and Christ Jesus that's amazing isn't it what's that tell you that tells you no matter where you are no matter what your circumstances are you are never alone wherever you are you're in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and then he says who will judge the living and the dead and in view of his appearing and his kingdom I give you this what charge he's saying in view of I want you to circle that in view of the appearing of Jesus Christ in view of the coming kingdom of Jesus he's saying in view of eternity live with an eternal view an eternal perspective.

Now eternity can be a pretty hard concept for us to get because we do not live in a world where we're that we have any categories that match the idea of timelessness and so this is one of the best examples I've ever seen of eternity I got this idea from Jim Joslin who's our pastor of community here at Twin Lakes Church he and his wife Susie use this as an example in workshops they do and I think they got the idea from Francis Chan I've never seen Francis do this but I think this is where Jim and Susie picked this up but this is very memorable to me many of you saw this rope when you came in this is a super long rope this rope stretches all the way down the stage all the way down the center aisle all the way out into the lobby and all the way out to the info desk where I see Gina right now and she's waving at me even though she's on the phone Gina get off the phone I'm preaching anyway so but uh but listen this this line represents just theoretically in it by matter of scale it represents your lifespan not just your lifespan here on earth but the millions and billions of years you're going to spend in eternity in the presence of God pardon me worshiping him and doing all kinds of wonderful fun stuff on what the bible calls the new heaven and the new earth right but this little piece of one inch electrical tape at the end of the rope that represents the 80 or 90 years that you get here on this broken planet before the Lord restores it that's your current life here on earth right now.

What I don't understand I understand if people don't believe that there's an eternity that they would live for just those 80 or 90 years but what I don't understand is that there's a lot of Christians presumably a lot of us here in this room who believe that there's all this in your lifespan ahead of you but who choose to make all their decisions and have all their strategy and of all their goals and all their ambitions focused on this little one inch piece of electrical tape just things that are going to matter for 80 years or so. In fact the older you get the more sort of chaotic this becomes how many of you are 40 years old or older can I see a show of hands 40 a lot of us here all right so you reach yeah give it up for the middle-aged people here in the crowd thank you thank you thank you middle-aged dads raise your hands no I could just keep going but listen you reach middle age and you're right at about the middle of that electrical tape right you're at it about 40 years or so when you go oh man I only got 40 or 50 years left at best so I better start scrimping and saving and strategizing and working really hard so when I get to this last little bit of electrical tape I have a really really good time now does that make any sense no why not instead do things that are going to last for the whole rest of the length of this rope.

You know Carol Johnston my friend Ray Johnston's wife by the way Ray has been such an influence on me talk about a father figure Ray I got so many ideas in fact for this message from Ray because he's a guy who really lives like this Carol told me that they have a question that they ask each other whenever they're making a major decision they call it the 25 000 question the 25 and they get got this idea when they were they were having a dinner with a very wealthy couple there in granite bay where they live and this couple they were asking them well what's your kind of key to a happy marriage and this couple told them well you know lovey and I have a strategy we call it the 25 000 question if either one of us wants to spend more than 25 000 we make sure we ask permission from the spouse and they said what about you and Carol said well you know we have a 25 000 question too that we ask each other we always ask each other before major decisions will this matter in 25 000 years that is actually an even better question and what will matter in 25 000 years what's going to last the length of this rope well you humans human souls so relationships are an investment in eternity your relationship with God so worship is an investment in eternity and also what you do for the poor what you do for people who are in you know lower privileged status the bible Jesus says your rewards for that are going to go on for eternity so you want to focus on what lasts forever.

What kind of a difference does this kind of eternal perspective have in your life? I want to jot jot down three things very quickly this will produce first of all courage courage how so when you know you have a relationship with Jesus he's your best friend and your best friend is the one returning to establish his kingdom that brings courage. I don't know if you like quotes I love them check this one out C.S. Lewis said the remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else when you do not fear God you fear everything that's a great quote isn't it? Fearing God living in light of his appearing and the coming judgment that actually brings you courage. Second it'll give you confidence it'll give you confidence because you know we're in a battle and the battle's not over but you know we win Paul is saying Jesus is going to come and judge the living and the dead it looks like Nero has the last judgment now but he doesn't it's Jesus and Jesus says by his grace we're going to be welcomed into his kingdom man that gives you a ton of confidence and then third it'll give you clarity it'll give you all kinds of clarity Paul says every single human being is going to stand before Jesus and be judged and in that day you're either going to do a lot of rejoicing or a lot of regretting and most people never think of this eternal perspective.

Now before you get to page two there on the top of it and by the way yes I'm spending most of my time here this morning on on point one because I really want us to get this and I'm going to rock it through the last three points but how do you you're saying okay well I don't get how do I choose something today that's going to last for the length of this rope? Here's just one example. There's a guy in this church named Brian. Brian is a guard at a correctional facility at the jail here in this county that's a tough job right? I mean when you get a vacation from being a guard at a correctional institution you really want to just get away because that's a high pressure job and so when his wife approached him a few years ago and said you know what I heard in church about Camp Attitude. Now Camp Attitude is a camp here it's up in Oregon but here at Twin Lakes we send people up to help it out every single year we send teenagers up there to be buddies for disabled kids adults go up there to help cook and clean it's a family camp for families who have kids with disabilities it is such a powerful thing so when his wife says hey let's go up there and help out for a week Brian said forget about it I don't want to do something that stressful and work oriented on my vacation and she said let's just try it once.

So Brian goes up there. Brian is basically spending his entire vacation time this year up at Camp Attitude with his family helping out. He said it is the most fun thing, the most exciting, most fulfilling thing I've ever done in my life. You know why? Because that's how it feels when you're doing something that has impact for the length of the rope. And by the way yes there is an opportunity for you to get involved this summer if you want to. They're going to have a table just outside. Jim Joslyn who lent me this rope is going to be there to answer any questions you have but that's just one example of something that you could that cruise kids people that can't hammer people those of you who support them that's something that's going to last for eternity.

So you got to live with an eternal perspective then number two deliver God's message deliver God's message. Did you know you have a message to deliver? That's part of the purpose of your life. Paul says verse two preach the word. Now stop right there I gotta say something preach the word I don't like the word preach. Anybody here like this word? In our culture it's associated only with negative right? Don't be so preachy stop preaching to me not another sermon that Madonna song Papa don't preach. Anybody here remember that song? Give it up for middle-aged dads right? Well and so all the negative stuff associated with preaching then I get to tell people when they ask me what do you do I'm a preacher it's like saying I'm a professional irritant it's a horrible thing to say.

But in the original language when the word was used in the Greek it was word for it was carrizo and that was when a king wanted to issue a proclamation to the kingdom. So when the king wanted to issue a proclamation to the kingdom and he got a carix and the carix got to issue this proclamation he basically got a piece of mail from the king and he got to go into the kingdom and read this proclamation and the Bible says do we have a king? Do we have a king? Has the king given us a proclamation? What is it? It's the gospel the good news the kingdom of God is here that God loves the world so much that he came here he sent his one and only son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life that is your message and you and I get to deliver that message to every single person on the planet.

In fact turn to the person to your left and right and tell them you are a mail carrier right now go ahead and turn to them and say you're a mail carrier and then you do that too that's your job you've got a message from the king and you get to deliver that message to your kids to your friends to your whole community. Now what I love about this is he goes on to tell you how to deliver it. He says be prepared in season and out of season always be ready do it when you feel like it and when you don't and he says three words the first one is correct then the next one is what and then the next one is what correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

I want to put up those three words to explain what they mean. The first is correct that means to replace incorrect ideas with correct ideas and why is that important? Because no one lives well until they think well. Nobody lives well until they think well. Second rebuke is replace incorrect actions with correct actions. Rebuke is like whoa stop going in that direction and turn around and go in this direction okay but have any of you ever been in a church where all they knew how to do was rebuke and correct? You can't live on a diet of that that's why Paul also says encourage which means replace discouragement with hope replace discouragement with hope. Here's how important this is honest audience poll here show of hands how many of you have been discouraged at some point in the last year can I see a show of hands? Look at that now how many of you have been discouraged at some point I have in the last week can I see a show of hands? Look at that the majority of people are always going to need encouragement write encouraging notes encourage you know I keep any encouraging notes I get I have a folder on my desktop I also have a physical folder in my office and I mean even if they're slightly encouraging like you're not as bad as you were when you first came here anything along those lines.

In fact I'll show you one of them I keep a few actually taped to my wall and this is one of them. I actually spoke at the college that my daughter attended one year William Jessup University and she introduced me to the student body when I spoke in chapel and in her intro she said some things that made me cry before I'd spoken one word and she didn't know it but I grabbed her notes for her intro and I taped them to my wall and they're there to this day and let me just show you this is these are such encouraging words she said it is my pleasure to introduce a man I've been well acquainted with for the last 18 years currently he pastors my home church in Santa Cruz California where he's been for the last 17 years along with his other more well-known accomplishments he's also an expert bedtime storyteller great for early morning conversations over coffee sounds like a moose when he blows his nose and is also the world's best father and then she introduces me you know why I love that because it reminds me of what's important for the length of the road morning coffee no relationships with your family and listen by the way with this in mind don't ever think that what you jot down in a card to your dad on Father's Day doesn't make a difference because let me just tell you a secret about dads most dads live with sort of a low level fear that they're a lousy dad almost every dad I know has expressed that fear to me and so when they get any kind of encouragement in the right direction it means so much they may tape it to the wall in their office and never take it down and your encouragement is part of what Paul's talking about here.

But this is what Paul says this is how you raise kids this is how you raise parents this is how you manage a team this is how you manage an office correct rebuke and encourage. The number three expect great challenges and this is a theme he's been hitting on all through this letter right it will not always be easy verse three for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine instead to suit their own desires they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths he's saying people are going to twist the message from the king people are going to open up the letter from the king change the message put it back in the envelope and deliver a twisted message.

Now how did this happen back in the day? I was watching a historical documentary on first century religion in Ephesus where Timothy is the pastor receiving this letter and this is a history channel documentary and these historians were saying that in the first century church it was really threatened when it was just this little baby organization not even really an organization yet but it was threatened because people coming in from the pagan temples were bringing their sense of what the gods were like to Christianity and they were literally making up myths about Jesus that were written decades after the gospels. For example one of them was and you can still find this in some of these gnostic gospels today that Jesus once he was resurrected was 40 feet tall and he just kicked the Roman soldiers around just boom kicked him into you know Syria and he just walked the campus like Paul Bunyan. Why did they think of him that? Because this is how their Greek and Roman gods were and they were trying to make Jesus into somebody who was from Olympus and that's what Paul means when he says myths because this completely mythologized Christ who according to the real gospel was a hundred percent human. Now he was God but Philippians 2 says he laid aside those prerogatives of deity and while he was walking on this earth he was he was in a regular flesh and blood body with its limitations just like you and me and Paul says these myths are corrupting the truth of the God with us gospel.

Now does Christianity get mythologized today? Of course all the time there's a thousand ways that it does a thousand ways people teach you myths to get you distracted from Jesus. I mean it can happen in the most super spiritual the most the most intense worshipful I love you Jesus crowds where they want to follow Jesus so much that they're vulnerable when teachers come along and say I'll tell you how to follow Jesus better I'll give you the magic formula so that for example every time you pray to heal somebody it'll always happen the reason everybody doesn't get healed is not everybody knows the kind of the secret but let me tell you the secret or let me tell you the secret to every time you pray you can get whatever you want every time or it can also happen in secular myths. Secular myths in our society pervade us like if you only made more money if you only had better status if you only had more wealth then you'd be happy those are myths too and Christianity is a myth busting faith especially the gospel of grace the real gospel of Christianity and Paul is saying not everybody's gonna like it when you bust their myths some myths we love and we hold dear and so when you strip away the myths and go back to the simple truth of the gospel some people are going to oppose you but he's saying Timothy you got to go on and that leads right to number four and that is stay on mission.

He says Timothy other people are going to get the message mixed up they're going to twist the words they're going to make fun of you but you he says keep your head in all situations. Now stop there for a minute and I want you to say that phrase out loud that's highlighted on the screen with me ready here we go keep your head in all situations keep your wits about you keep calm and carry on. Here's a great quote unchecked emotions equal unsuccessful living right? Unchecked emotions lead to unsuccessful leadership unchecked emotions lead to unsuccessful marriages in fact unchecked emotions lead to loss loss of leadership loss of influence loss of relationships and so Paul says as he knows he's going down he knows he's going to die and he dashes off the last few notes to Timothy he says and this is one thing you got to remember keep your head in all situations and Paul writes to Timothy and to you and me and a lot of us dads really need to hear this this is one of the most important things you can do keep your cool and he doesn't stop there endure hardship don't quit do the work of an evangelist.

Now circle the word work for a second because when you talk about evangelism what do you what do you think about? You think talk talk talk words words words? No it says do the work of an evangelist it involves work not to earn your salvation of course but to earn credibility in the eyes of the community that's one of the reasons why we're why we do serve the bay projects every that's one of the reasons we support Second Harvest Food Bank that's one of the reasons that the world's biggest garage sale gave a check for almost forty nine thousand dollars to Second Harvest just this past week that's going to help them buy almost 200 000 meals why that's part of the work of an evangelist it's part of the mail carrier duties that we have and Paul says discharge all the duties of your ministry in other words live every day with your purpose in mind.

Now listen Paul is just getting ramped up and the next three verses are amazing we're going to talk about him next weekend don't miss it Paul talks about boxing he talks about racing he talks about sports and to talk about them we're going to have Bill Butterworth who's one of our favorite speakers here at Twin Lakes Church he's he knows a lot about sports he's been a chaplain to almost every single NFL team he's a best-selling author and those three verses are sort of a specialty of bills he's studied them and spoken on them around the country for years and so we're bringing him in to talk about those next weekend but I want to leave you with an awesome quote Ray says our greatest fear should not be a failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter isn't that an awesome quote live for the whole rope not just for an inch so Paul is saying to Timothy here is what matters.

Now is it really possible to live this way? It is a huge privilege to have with us a man whose life took a major turn when he considered this very topic what am I living for do I have an eternal value here? Or Tanner has been an Olympic swimmer I mean to swim in the Olympics that's amazing right? He's also been a nine time national swimming champion and he also won the world championships in Rome at absolutely the elite level of his sport and he is also a dad of six kids so that makes him very worthy to talk about this on Father's Day you saw him playing guitar on the worship team with us today would you please welcome Or Tanner because I want to ask him a few questions about this where it's awesome to have you here and we talked earlier this week about this yeah about how we were talking about these verses and you said you kind of came to a crisis point in your life when you thought am I really living for an eternal perspective you were an athlete but not yet a believer in Jesus tell us what happened.

I started swimming when I was 10 years old and by the time I was 14 I had gotten pretty good I was the fastest 14 year old in the country and at that time you know it became very clear that swimming was going to be play a big part in my life I continued to swim through high school and young my young 20s early 20s and 92 games like you said and then swam with the US team from 93 to 2000 and in 1999 it was kind of I was at the height of my swimming career I had just come off a year in 98 of finishing first in the country and fourth in the world and it going into the Olympic year in 2000 it was going to be a great year for me but I went through an interesting season in my life where I got I was 25 and I realized for the first time ever really I really didn't think about my life beyond swimming. Swimming was very encompassing for me and I think that has a lot a lot of high level athletes suffer from this too where their whole life kind of revolves around themselves and now as a Christian as I look back on it it's it's like an idolatry. Everything was about me what I needed to do and I couldn't really allow anything else to interfere with that so when I was 25 in 1999 I said what am I going to do with my life after I stopped swimming kind of a midlife crisis.

And I thought that what I was doing was very important it was a very elite thing you know not a lot of people are are trying to win a gold medal or this or that and so I thought highly of myself which was foolish and but that's where I was and I went through this depression what am I going to do what am I going to pursue with this determination with this fervor when I'm done with swimming and that's what caused me to kind of reflect on my life and that's where I met the Lord.

And you met the Lord through some athletes who were believers how did that happen? Well there were a few Christian coaches and athletes that I was great friends with and they ministered to me and long story short yeah through this time I spoke with them a lot asked a lot of questions and accepted Christ in early 2000 and your goal really changed at this point from just your swimming ambitions and there's nothing wrong with those ambitions but but you started looking at the whole rope how so what would you say your purpose in life became?

Well that final year of my swimming I actually swam as a Christian athlete and so I had a very different perspective on my life and what I was doing as a swimmer it wasn't um it was much more eternally focused and that year I finished up the year actually on a low note and a lot of people would would look at an athlete or someone who didn't make the Olympic team I didn't make the Olympic team in 2000 by one 100th of a second yes I missed it by one 100th of a second and a lot of people would say wow you know you were surely gonna make it you missed it you you know you failed you must be so disappointed and yes I was sad but there was still this piece that I had and I couldn't understand it at the time I was a young Christian but I had this piece and I didn't feel like my life was defined by this one failure that I had because I had swam for 17 years and had a lot of great experiences but I had this joy and this piece that was that was from the Lord.

Now Or, only a few of us here are elite athletes and so wait no I got a tense first no I so how does this apply to just any career? Yeah well I began to pursue Christ instead of my own ambitions and I realized whether whether I'm a father now and I'm a husband and I was I did I swam for a season but I know I'll be a husband and a father for the rest of my life and that's the same for all dads here today you may have done something great in one point but most are probably married and most might have kids or not have kids you'll be a spiritual father or or in some way for the rest of your life and so I began to pursue these things that I felt like were had having much more eternal value like being a dad and being a husband and in your work environment whether you no matter what you do where you go God's put you there he's going to use your ministry you're you're a Christian disguised as a doctor or a lawyer a plumber a mailman whatever that is and so we're living our lives out for God's purpose.

That's awesome hey let's thank Or Tanner for sharing with us that was great really appreciate that. Here's the bottom line the apostle Paul is saying stay focused on your purpose stay on mission it's going to be okay God is in charge ultimately is all it all works out so stay focused on the whole rope.

All right let's pray together would you bow your heads with me heavenly father help us to live every single day with a sense of purpose that comes from you and God I know that that eternal perspective starts with a decision to trust in you for today and for eternity and so I pray that all across this room right now maybe for the very first time people are saying Lord I choose to place my trust in you as my heavenly father maybe some people are saying I resonated with what Or said I want to live my life for something more important than just my own accomplishments I want to live with eternity in view I want to live for you and I know that that starts by receiving your unconditional love the love shown to us through Jesus Christ and his payment for my sins on the cross and his resurrection to empower me and so I choose to trust in you help me live my life with purpose as I follow your lead in Jesus name I pray amen.