Be Prepared

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 20, 2019.  The Bible verses used are 2 Timothy3:14--4:5.

            The Bible.  The inspired word of God.  God’s message to human beings.  The most important book in all of Christianity.

            How many of us read it?

            Now, don’t take that as an implied blanket criticism.  I know that there are many people here who do read the Bible.  Some read it faithfully every day.  Some have read it all the way through, front to back, and some have even done so more than once.  Others, I know, read the Bible every day as part of a daily devotional time.  All of that is wonderful, and I applaud you for it.  But there are others of us who don’t read the Bible regularly.  Some of us don’t read the Bible at all.  

            That’s too bad.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying God’s going to send you to hell for it or anything.  We’re saved by our faith in Jesus Christ and by God’s love and grace and mercy.  We are not commanded to be Bible scholars.  Nowhere in the gospels is Jesus quoted as saying, “Go and memorize the Bible.”  

            But Jesus did say to go and make disciples.  And if we’re going to do that effectively, we need to know what we’re talking about.  We need to know what Jesus said and what he did.  We need to know about God the Father.  And one of the best ways, maybe the best way, we can learn that is to read the Bible.

            The Apostle Paul, writing to his friend Timothy, told him to go and preach the word.  But the very next words he told Timothy, after telling him to preach the word, are these:  “be prepared”.

            You see, no matter how much you and I may want to serve God and go and make disciples, we’re not going to do a very good job of it if we’re not prepared to do it.  And one of the best ways to be prepared is to read the Bible.  

Again, I’m not saying you have to have the Bible memorized.  But Paul does emphasize that knowing the Bible is important.  Not only does he say that “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.”  He also says that we need to know it “so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped.”  

It’s like anything else in life:  we’ve got to know what we’re doing and how to do it to do it well.  No matter how much we may want to do something, if we’re not prepared ahead of time, if we have not done the things we need to do to get ready to do it, we’re not going to do it very well.  That’s true of sports or music or teaching or farming or construction or anything else.  It’s true of preaching, too.  If we’re not prepared to do something, we’re just not going to do it very well no matter how much we wish we could.  And again, one of the best ways to be prepared to talk about God is to read the Bible.

But as important as the Bible is, it’s not the only way for us to be prepared to talk about God.  In telling Timothy to be prepared, Paul says this:  “Be prepared in season and out of season.”

In other words, we need to be prepared to talk about God all the time.  Not just in church.  Not just when we’re in a Bible study.  Not just when we’re in a religious setting.  All the time.  When we’re in the grocery store.  When we’re in the cafe.  When we’re at the convenience store.  When we’re at work.  When we’re at school.  When we’re in the doctor’s office.  We need to be prepared to talk about God all the time.

Now, I did not say “talk about God all the time.”  I said, “Be prepared to talk about God all the time.”  We don’t want to come across as self-righteous or arrogant or anything like that.  But in our ordinary conversations with people, chances will come up to talk about God.  We may not have to go into great detail.  It may be as simple as someone telling you they have a problem and saying, “I’ll pray for you.”  It may be as simple as telling someone “Have a blessed day.”  

Or, it may be that we will have a chance to go deeper, that we will have a chance to talk about what our faith does for us.  Maybe we’ll have the chance to talk about how our faith helps us through a tough situation, or calms us down when we’re scared, or helps us keep going when we’re discouraged.  It all depends on the situation.  But the point is that we’ll miss those chances to talk about God if we’re not ready to do it.  We need to always have in the back of our mind that a chance may come up to talk about God.  We need to look for that chance, and be ready to take it when it comes.

And I want to make clear that I’m not putting myself forward as your role model for this.  I need to work on this, too.  And I also understand that it may be a little easier for me, simply because I’m a pastor and so people kind of expect me to talk about God.  But this is not something for just pastors to do.  It’s something for all of us to do, and I suspect most of us--again including me--need to work on it.  We all need to do more to be prepared to talk about God, so we can see the chances God puts in front of us and take advantage of them when they come.

There’s another way we need to be prepared, too.  Paul tells Timothy to go ahead and “correct, rebuke, and encourage,” but he says one more thing about that.  He tells Timothy to do this “with great patience.”  

In other words, we need to be prepared for people to not accept what we say.  Some will, of course.  There are people who will be open to us talking about God.  In fact, there are people who will be happy to hear us talking about God.  And there will be others who will probably not be open to it or happy about it, but will tolerate us and won’t be upset.

But there are people who don’t want to hear about God.  In our area, there are probably not as many as there are in some places, but they’re still around.  And so, we need to be patient.  

What does that mean?  Well, for one thing, it means we need to not get upset with someone if they’re not interested in hearing what we have to say.  We need to keep treating them with respect and love, because after all, Paul tells us in First Corinthians Thirteen that love is patient.  What else does it mean?  Well, it may mean that we need to explain things better.  It may mean that we need to back off for a while, and come back to the subject of God at a better time.  It may mean that we need to do a better job of showing love to them, so they’ll be more open to hearing what we have to say.  But if we’re prepared for someone to not be interested, we won’t be discouraged if that’s the reaction we’ll get.  We’ll be able to be patient.

But Paul says something else, too.  He says that, no matter prepared we are, no matter how much we read the Bible, no matter how much we look for chances to talk about God, no matter how patient we are, there are people who simply will refuse to listen.  He says, “The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires...they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

In other words, there are people we simply will not be able to reach.  It’s just the way it is.  I mean, even Jesus could not reach everyone.  When Jesus was on earth there were plenty of people who heard him, live and in person, and turned away.  They were not interested.  He was not saying what they wanted to hear, and they would not open their minds and hearts to listen.  If even Jesus himself could not reach everyone, you and I cannot expect to do it.  It’s just not possible. 

But Paul tells Timothy, and us, something else, too.  He tells us not to let the fact that we cannot reach everyone discourage us.  He says, “keep your head in all situations...do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”  In other words, keep trying.  No matter what happens, no matter what the reaction to you is, keep trying.  Don’t give up.  Yes, there will be people we cannot reach, but there will be people we can reach, too.  Keep working.  Keep trying.  Keep doing the work of God.  We won’t be able to succeed all the time, but we will succeed sometimes.  With God’s help, we will succeed.

And remember, God does not measure success the way we do, anyway.  God is not keeping score, giving us a rating for how many people we’ve brought to the Lord.  What God is interested in is this:  are we faithful?  Are we doing our best to serve God?  Are we doing our best to show love to God?  Are we doing our best to show love to others?  If we’re doing those things to the best of our ability--realizing that we are imperfect human beings and will make mistakes sometimes--but if we’re doing those things to the best of our ability, then we will have succeeded in God’s eyes, regardless of what our results may be on earth.

You and I are called to spread the gospel.  If we’re going to do that, we need to be prepared.  We need to know what the Bible says about Jesus and about God.  We need to be ready to take advantage of chances to talk about God, whenever and wherever they come up.  We need to be patient if people are not ready to listen to what we have to say.  And we need not get discouraged if we run into people who simply do not want to hear what we have to say.

God will be with us.  If we’re prepared, if we’re faithful, and if we do our best to serve God and love God, God will bless us.  And we will succeed in God’s eyes, no matter what the result is on earth.