Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

1 Timothy 6:3-16

“Pursuing Peace”

Rev. Meagan Boozer

I don’t know about you, but the last 9 1/2 months of sermons have (sometimes) caused me to feel like I’m at a ping pong match. Back in January, when we started the Year of the Bible program here, which encouraged people to embark on a systematic reading of the entire Bible in a year, I committed to preach from one of the texts being read each week. One week, the text that would stick out as the one to preach from would be in the Old Testament – the next week it would be in the New Testament – the next week it might stay in the New Testament – and the next week, it might be in Psalms. It has been difficult, if not nearly impossible to connect the messages from one week to the next, except the last two weeks when we explored the meaning of life from Ecclesiastes. Nonetheless, I trust God has taught you some good things in these last months – He surely has taught me some important truths – and more than anything, I hope we all have been reminded that Scripture, whether it comes from the Old or New Testaments, applies to our lives today. The Bible is not just some old book with old stories in it. The Bible is the Word of God – and it tells us how to live the best life God as designed it for us. It matters whether we follow the instructions in the Bible, or whether we choose to ignore them. It matters – the Word of God matters day in and day out. I’m proud of the people who have stuck with the reading schedule. I’m proud of those who tried, but couldn’t do it – because at least they tried. But I’m really proud of anyone who schedules their days in such a way that they have fit in Bible reading as a daily discipline. All of us need to be reading our Bible every day for some period of time. If you need help figuring out what to read, how much to read, when to read it – ask me. I’ll help you. We all need to be students of the Bible. That’s part of what it means to be a Christian. The Scripture is where you find out everything you need to know about living a blessed life. This is the owner’s manual for that life.

Now today, we’re looking at 1 Timothy. This is a book written by the apostle Paul to one of his pastoral students. Paul calls him in the opening paragraph, “Timothy, my loyal child in the faith.” Paul is writing this letter to Timothy who had been put in charge of a church in Ephesus. But, this letter is not just for Timothy. In chapter 3:14, 15, Paul pinpoints who the letter is for and why he wrote it. Let’s turn there: “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

He’s writing to tell us how we ought to behave as the church.

How do you feel about that?

Do you feel offended?

Do you think the church already knows how to behave – it’s the people “out there” who need to know how to behave – not us!

Would you call this church a pillar and bulwark of the truth?

Let’s read the passage chosen by God for us today (1 Timothy 6:3-16): Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Now, perhaps you hear that and you say, “See, we’re okay.” “We don’t do that stuff. We don’t love money. We don’t pick at people’s words, and we surely don’t have what Paul is calling a craving for controversy.” “We never talk quietly about something that is going on at the church - that the pastor is doing what we think she shouldn’t be doing, or that she isn’t doing what we think she should be doing. We never talk like that. We never whisper among ourselves about what is happening that we don’t like, or what isn’t happening that we would like. We never stir up conversations among ourselves that tear down the testimony and ministry of the church – we never do that. We always work perfectly together. We are completely and totally happy and thrilled with how everything is going in the church. We only say complementary things about our fellow church members and our staff. We know how to behave as a church family – and that’s the way we do behave. It’s good that Paul wrote these words to some troubled churches out there, but we don’t need what Paul is telling this ancient congregation under the leadership of a young man named Timothy. We know our boundaries, and we always talk, work, and play within those boundaries.”

Two weeks ago as Penn State fans everywhere prepared for the opening game against Akron, the Penn State student who lives in our house (our son, Douglas) and his friend Travis, had a most interesting experience in State College. Last year, you may remember before the Ohio State game, a new little village was born outside Beaver Stadium called, “Paternoville.” Students pitched tents outside the stadium and lived in these tents all week long. The first students got in the stadium first on Saturday for the game. (Student tickets get you in the stadium, but not in reserved seating. If you want to be in the front row, you have to get there way ahead of the gate opening.) Last year, Douglas was part of Paternoville. This year, Doug and Travis had finished their summer jobs and were waiting for the semester to begin at Mont Alto. It was Tuesday. The game was Saturday. They decided to head on up and pitch their tent late on Tuesday night. They arrived around midnight. No other tents were up yet. They would be the first!

Some of the lights were on around the stadium, so they could see fine to set everything up. They set up in the same area the tents had been pitched last year. It took about an hour and a half to get the tent just the way they wanted it, and get all their sleeping gear out of the car. It was perfect. Just as they finished, a policeman pulled up and very angrily told them they could not stay. Not this year. No way. They were going to have to take it all down. Well, they were so devastated after putting everything up, they just lay on the grass for a while trying to get up the strength and gumption to pull it all back down. Meanwhile, another pair of policemen came by and told them they better get it down and get out of there because that other policeman was mean, and he would probably be back soon to arrest them for trespassing if they didn’t move soon. So, they pulled it all down, packed the car, and were ready to come back to Chambersburg at approximately 2:00 a.m. They were exhausted. Just as Doug had put his key in the ignition, they saw the first (mean) policeman coming their way, and fast. He pulled in, in front of them, and they were thinking, “Oh, here we go. He’s going to arrest us.” But, he came to the window and told them that he had called his boss to make sure he wasn’t telling Doug and Travis something that wasn’t true about staying outside the stadium. His boss told this policeman to tell the boys that they could stay, and in the morning they would know what the policy of the university was for the 2006 season. Now picture this, it’s 2:00 a.m. They have put the site up and taken it down, they’ve resigned themselves to coming home – and now the lure of staying was in front of them again. After much moaning and groaning, they decided it would be worth it to put it all up again – so that’s what they did. They were determined & persistent!

As they were trying to get that last rod in the tent that goes over the top, it snapped, leaving a lopsided, wounded shelter. At this point, they were so tired they didn’t care enough to find a temporary solution. They just got all their pillows and blankets out of the car for the second time and crashed inside their leaning abode.

Then the rain started. Not just a light drizzle. It poured. Anyone who’s been in a wounded tent knows what happens in the rain. You get wet. Travis told us his feet were in a puddle. He told us when he moved his head on the pillow, it squished. They were tired, soaked, and miserable. But finally they slept.

After what seemed like no more than 15 minutes of sleep, they heard a voice outside the tent. “Hello?” “Hello?” “Is anybody in there?” They told us they couldn’t quite make sense of the voice. Was it a dream? Was it real? Finally, Doug sat up, realizing it was real and said, “What?”

When he looked outside the tent, there was a female police officer, all cheery in the early morning damp and drizzle.

She said, “It’s been decided that you can stay. All you have to do is move your tent into the designated area.” Doug looked out the front flap of the leaning tent and discovered that sometime between when they had gone to sleep and the time this policewoman woke them up (between 4 and 6 a.m.), an area had been roped off and clearly marked with a sign: “All tents must be set up inside the ropes.” I wish you could hear Doug and Travis tell this story. I can barely do it justice. But, I hope you get the ping pong sense of put up the tent, take down the tent, put up the tent, take down the tent, you can stay, you can’t stay, you can stay, you can’t stay…

Paul, in this text to Timothy and the church he is serving is saying to them (and to us), “Listen, you can’t ping pong around here. If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you’ve got to go hard after him.” He says in v. 13 & 14, “In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until Jesus comes back.” The Message puts it this way, “I’m charging you before the life-giving God and before Christ, who took his stand before Pontius Pilate and didn’t give an inch: Keep this command to the letter, and don’t slack off.”

Don’t slack off. RESIST the temptation to pick at things that are going on with other people that bother you. RESIST the temptation to pick at the words others use. RESIST the morbid craving to stir things up so you’ll have something to talk about. (Church people are especially bad at this in regards to talking about troubles at other churches. RESIST this.) RESIST being suspicious, envious, greedy. RESIST trying to get everything the way you want it to be. We all know that if you’re looking for something to pick at, you’re going to find it every time, and then some. So you’ll be just like some ping pong ball being pretty good one day, but going right back into persistent sin the next day. We need to stop looking for what we don’t like, and for what we don’t have. Paul is telling us that we need to shun this way of living. (You know what shun means with all the Amish around here. It means to “put out” as if dead.) Put to death that ping pong way of living, go hard after right living. The boundaries are very clear, they are staked by righteousness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Choosing to live within these boundaries helps us to be content (at peace) with others and at peace with what you have. It’s important to trust that God’s promise to work in your life and in the life of the church are just that – PROMISES from GOD! He will guide your life, He will build his church, and He will use you and me to do it – if we will stick to the sound teaching found right here, in this Word, written down for you and me as an authoritative standard for living the godly life. We don’t have to guess what the sound teaching is – we don’t have to guess where the boundaries are, like Doug & Travis had to guess. God has made it very, very clear where we are to make our dwelling, hasn’t he?

After Doug and Travis got over the shock of having to move the tent again, and after realizing that everything they had was soaked, they found a place to dry everything. They then moved their tent inside the ropes where it belonged. Other tents popped up around them throughout the day, but their broken tent kept collapsing, and the other campers laughed at them even though they had been first. Using about every penny they had, and knowing that Ernesto was on the way, they went out to buy a new tent. This new tent had all the right poles, stakes, and supports. It was bigger than all the other tents in the little village. No one laughed anymore. No one looked at them now and said, “I wouldn’t want to go visit in that tent. Look how it leans in this way, and shifts over that way.”

I shiver when I hear what people say about the Church. (I’m talking about all churches, here.) Who would want to go visit a church that talks against itself and leans and shifts in controversy from one week to another to another to another?

I’m proud of so much of what we have accomplished together in these last 4 years. I’m proud of things that we didn’t accomplish, but at least we tried. I’m really proud that Head Start is here in this building – I’m very pleased that we are being pushed to learn new ways to serve our community. But, you know as well as I know, that we fall short of what God is calling this community of faith to be. We have to get where Paul was (1:15), “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.” We have to look honestly at ourselves and recognize the sin that lives within us and hangs on us and drags behind us. Paul is speaking to us. He wants us to have a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. (1:5)

Paul writes to us: My loyal children in the faith, If you pitch your tent in the area I have clearly roped off for you, if you persist in following the instructions I have written down for you, if you use the truth that never fails to stabilize the life I gave to you, then you will find yourselves a part of bringing down to earth, peace from heaven, until Jesus comes again.

To him be honor and eternal dominion, Amen.

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

09-17-06