Pastor Mark Gruner

September 29, 2019

1 Timothy 6:6-9

Prayer: May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

♪ “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to him in prayer.”

This morning I’m going to center in on what I believe to be one of the keystones of our faith, and that is that our faith is based on the relationship with have with God in and through Jesus Christ. It is a relationship of extreme friendship, of God and us in this thing we call life together, never to be separated from one another. For Jesus gave his very life for us, for God became one with us in Jesus simply to show to us that this is how much God loves us, to become one with us, to share in our lives, to experience all our joys and all our sorrows so that we will know that we are never ever alone, that we do not carry the burden of our lives on our shoulders alone, but that God who creates us is also the God who loves us, the God who has become one with us in Christ, and that is good news.

So I’m going to play off the letters of Paul to Timothy for this and I would encourage everyone to read these two letters sometime this week and read them with the idea that it is one friend writing to another, perhaps a teacher writing to a favorite student, perhaps and elder brother writing to a younger brother, whatever a close and caring and loving relationship.

So, to begin, just how important is friendship? Well, several years ago I was on a bowling team and the other team we played, some took it seriously, some not so much, but the most fun team to bowl against was a team of four women.

They were a fun team to bowl against because they didn’t care at all about the score or strategy or any of that. What was their primary concern was that at least once a week they got to be with one another and their friendship with one another was obvious.

As the years went by, they had boyfriends and as I recall at least one, and I’m pretty sure, two of them had weddings, which was great fun. One thing I tried to impress on these four women was that the friendship that they had needed to continue, even with the marriages and children and moves from one town to another, they needed to stay in touch with one another because the friendship they had was something rare and wonderful and needed to be cared for and continued.

As I read through the letters of Paul to Timothy, there are several things I have problems with, especially where and what he thinks women’s role is to be in the church, but beyond that there is this friendship thing that rolls through the letters.

Paul starts his first letter with this line, “To Timothy, my loyal child in the faith” and in the second letter he starts with this line “To Timothy, my beloved child.” How cool is that! How would you like to receive a letter like that? Wouldn’t it give you a good feeling to know that this person, whom you respect, whom you are close to, calls you loyal and beloved? What a great level of intimacy.

Now in these letters, Paul spends lots of time sharing with Timothy the needs of the church, the concerns of this new faith in Jesus Christ. He implores Timothy to keep the faith, to ward off those who want to water it down and make it something it is not. That this faith in Jesus is one of belief and one of relationship and it is also one of action. To claim to be a Christin is to follow a fairly strict way of conduct. And all that is well and good and worth noting, but to my way of thinking there are a couple other things Paul mentions that really set these letters apart.

One is the way Paul begins the letters, with “my beloved child,” and “my dear child of faith.” That’s one that shows intimacy between Paul and Timothy. Another is a throw away line in the first letter, in chapter five, verse 23. When for no reason at all, it has nothing to do with what Paul writes before this or what he writes after this, but in the 23rd verse, he writes this, “Timothy no longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.”

I read that, and I thought “What? What’s that all about?” It’s as if Paul is intent on writing this letter, has all sorts of serious things to tell Timothy and then he pauses for a second and thinks, “Hmmm, Timothy has been having digestion problems, he should drink more wine.”

Out of the blue, he tosses in some medical advice. I would love to see that verse etched on a pillow or framed. “Don’t drink only water, but also drink a little wine for your stomach and your ailments.” It’s in the Bible you know.

Sometimes we read the Bible and we think it is holy and sacred and it is the word of God and it all is, but along with that, it is also real. Paul didn’t write these letters to Timothy with the thought that in 2019, they would be read and discussed in Minnesota. He thought that they would be read by Timothy, and maybe shared with a few other people at the time. He is writing to a friend, and we know something of that friendship because of that line, “don’t drink only water, but add a little wine.”

The other telling verse in these letters comes at the end of the second letter, where Paul is sharing his most inner most thoughts with Timothy. They are so personal and so affirming, that I’ve often used them for funerals. In the end of the third chapter of the second letter, Paul writes to his good friend, to one whom he calls his “beloved child,” he writes, “As for me I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Friendship, it is one of the great gifts that God gives to have, to have and to be friends, to know that we live in community, and that with God we live in the community of Father and Son and Holy Spirit and we are part of all that.

Jesus lets it be known. He says, “I’m the vine, you are the branches.” In and through Jesus we are adopted sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we are inheritors of eternal life with God which begins, not in some far off distant future, but begins on the day of our birth, is affirmed on the day of our baptism, is empowered every time we partake of his body and blood.

One thing that Paul tells Timothy over and over again, is to keep the faith, to tell others of the good news. He never tells Timothy that he has to wait until he learns more about the faith, he has to wait until he has all the answers, until he knows more, until he has taken all the necessary classes on Old Testament. No, Paul just tells Timothy to share the good news with others, and to do it just as he is.

And that is how the good news is best spread, from one friend to another, to share that which gives us life and hope and grace and love, to share our joys and our sorrows and share that in and through it all we do it all with Jesus right there by our side.

Often, we think we have to go it alone, but it is when we let go and let God that we engage in the dance of life that God creates for us.

♪ “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”

How very true that is. Our faith is not grounded in theory, or in theological statements, our faith is grounded in knowing that God is with us always.

Alleluia and Amen.