My life is being radically transformed by five minutes a day.

Just recently, I was “invited” to take part in a training event for church planters. My fellow clergy colleagues know the reason I put that word in quotation marks. When pastors get “invited” to participate in a meeting or training hosted by their conference or denomination, it’s a nice way of saying, “this is required and you must be present, but we want to sound really nice when we say that.” So, I was “invited” to be a part of this training.

I didn’t want to go. I grumbled. I complained. I whined. I looked for ways out. Nothing worked, so I went.

To my surprise, the training turned out to be a retreat. I rolled my eyes some more. With all the things I have going on trying to plant a new church, I did not have time for a training event, not to mention a retreat!

Over the course of this three-day retreat, I discovered something about myself. We were given some time to read in the book of Revelation chapters one and two. I was speed-reading (in spite of being instructed to slowly read and reflect). Then, God’s Word cut me to my core. As I was about to check off another thing on my list, I read these words from Revelation 2:2-4: “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance…I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

Without having realized it, I had become the church in Ephesus. I had become so busy working on planting a church that I had been neglecting my first love. I had not been working on my own personal relationship with Jesus. That’s the reason I am planting the church in the first place. I want people to know and fall in love with the Jesus I know and love. Yet, somehow, in the midst of everything, church work had taken over spiritual work…and make no mistake, the two are not the same.

Later in the retreat, we reviewed a spiritual inventory we had completed a month prior. Graphically, it was represented in a pie chart. Mine looked like someone had stolen a piece of my pie! The missing piece (or the piece that was extremely low) was about personal spiritual development – no big surprise there!

The rest of the retreat, to be quite honest, was a bit of a blur. I was so stunned by this divine revelation that my soul was deeply disturbed. How could it happen? Was this the path to burnout that so many pastors travel before leaving ministry? Was I becoming a statistic? Could I turn it around?

I began looking over my day. The truth is there was no time for personal spiritual development. My days were full of meetings, walking neighborhoods, phone calls, and emails. It was a very unhealthy way of doing ministry and life. I knew I needed God-time…just God and me. At the end of the day, I am so exhausted that I knew that would not have any benefit, because the moment I close my eyes to pray, I’d fall asleep. I’d tried that. It didn’t work – and the phrase, “when I fall asleep praying, it’s like I fall asleep in God’s arms” is just a lazy person’s way of getting out of prayer. That would not do. I had no time in the evening and no time during the day. The only time I could find was the morning. Let me just say that I don’t believe the devil is in the details, the devil is in the morning! I am not a morning person at all! I need at least ten minutes and a cup of coffee after waking before any conversation is directed toward me. I’m a firm believer that nothing should happen before 10 AM.

That being said, I had to make it work. It was my only option.

So, what did I do?

Well, I began setting my alarm clock to an earlier time…five minutes earlier.

That has been the key for me to turn things around. At first, it made little or no difference. Then, after a few days, five minutes became 15 minutes. Now, five minutes is an hour. I wake up before everyone else. I get dressed. I make coffee. I have God-time. It’s silent in the house. I invite God to come be with me, I read Scripture, I pray, and I listen to the Holy Spirit for whatever message I need to hear. This is sacred time for me. I believe it’s sacred time for God, too. I don’t check emails. I don’t check Facebook or Twitter. Those things can wait until after I’ve spent time with God.

I thank God for this time that I have. I thank God that He got my attention through an “invitation” to a retreat. I thank God that He saved me…again! I was headed in the wrong direction, even though the church was headed in the right direction.

Now, things are different. Things are better…not perfect, but better. My love for Jesus is getting stronger each day. And to think…it is all happening because of just five more minutes every day. Getting up five minutes earlier today than I got up yesterday. I’m willing to commit five minutes to recapture my first love. Will you give five more?

Never in over 50 years of ministry have I felt as helpless about the state of our United Methodist Church. Talk of separation is rampant. I love our United Methodist Church and am committed to the Wesleyan faith and way. I get knots in my stomach when I think of the possibility of division.

Our bishops have recognized the critical nature of our situation and have written a book “seeking a way forward.” Numerous others have proposed institutional or structural plans that might save us from division. I’m afraid the common feeling is that the divide is so pronounced that staying together as “one” denomination is impossible. Honestly, that is where I have been in my feelings and thinking.

I’m afraid we are cursed with a sense of the impossible.

The Holy Spirit has intervened and challenged me through Scripture.

Matthew and Mark tell a story of the disciples of Jesus being cursed in the same way. Jesus had been with Peter, James and John upon the mountain alone for spiritual renewal and rest. There on the mountain He was transfigured in their presence, and Elijah and Moses came to visit with them. Peter wanted to stay there and build three tabernacles – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. But Jesus wouldn’t allow that. We all have to leave that mountain place of excitement, joy, exhilaration and spiritual high and return to the valley. So Jesus and the three disciples did just that.

On coming down from the mountain, they were greeted with confusion, conflict and confrontation. But more crucially, they met a man in desperate need. His son was possessed by spirits that took his breath away, made him unable to talk, caused him to go into convulsions and to foam at the mouth and grind his teeth. The young fellow would not eat, and he was wasting away. In desperation, the father had brought his son to the disciples, asking them to heal him and to cast out the demons, but they could not.

After his sharp word of disappointment – “O faithless generation! How long am I to be with you?” – Jesus asked that the little boy be brought to Him.

In this father we have a picture of near despair, yet a burning hope — a picture of faith that struggles with reality. He can’t help but rehearse the awful, dreadful, condition of his son. “He’s been like that since he was a child,” he said. “He often throws himself into the fire or into the water and tries to destroy himself.” Still painting that awful picture, the faith and the hope of this father comes to the surface: “if you can,” he says, “let your heart be moved with pity and help us.”

Jesus probably interrupted him, saying, “you say, ‘If you can.’” Then He gives us that bold affirmation, “all things are possible to him who believes.”

Note a universal truth. “To approach anything in the spirit of hopelessness is to make it hopeless. To approach anything in the spirit of faith is to make it a possibility.” The tension within us is the sense of the possible struggling with the curse of the impossible. William Barclay, in his commentary on this story says, “most of us are cursed with a sense of the impossible, and that is precisely why miracles do not happen.” (The Daily Bible Study, p. 224)

That leads to the truth I want to underscore as it relates to the present state of the church. We discover it in the attitude of the father of the afflicted child. Originally he had come seeking Jesus Himself. Jesus was on the mountain top and only the disciples were available. His faith was badly shaken when the disciples seemed totally helpless, so badly shaken that when he came to Jesus all he could say was, “help me, if you can.” Then it happened: face to face with Jesus, suddenly his faith blazed up again. “I believe,” he cried.

Everybody thought the little boy was dead, but Jesus healed him. Later when he was alone with the disciples, they asked him privately, “why were we not able to cast out the demon?” Jesus responded to them, “this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting” (verse 29). I believe here is the distinctive Christian truth for where we are in our seeming hopeless impasse:  a sense of the possible empowered by the Living Christ, activated by prayer and fasting.

A lot of folks, including me, have been calling for prayers for the unity of the church. I want to be bolder.  Believing that we are in a desperate situation, as desperate as that father with his son, according to Jesus, the answer now to our situation is prayer and fasting.

For too many of us, fasting is a strange thought, not something we have seriously considered. Wesley, our father in the faith, strongly urged the early Methodists to practice fasting, but he also sounded a warning about extremes: “some have exalted this beyond all Scripture and reason; and others utterly disregarded it.” Some speak of it “as if it were all,” he said; others “as if it were nothing, as if it were a fruitless labor.” He concluded, “fasting is not the end, but it is a precious means thereto; a means which God himself has ordained, and in which therefore, when it is duly used, he will surely give his blessing” (“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On the Mount”: Discourse Seven).

We need good and expansive teaching on this neglected spiritual discipline. I lodge one significant claim in this call. Fasting is more than denying ourselves food. It is choosing to act out, by temporarily denying ourselves food, that we do not live by bread alone. We are completely dependent upon God, and we deliberately choose voluntary weakness. We become identifiably humble in the face of the problems with which we are dealing. We admit to each other, and primarily to God: only you can get us through this “mess.” We cease trying to define the unity we seek, believing that God will provide the unity God desires for God’s church. We become less clamorous in seeking our own way, and more receptive to what God may intend for us.

We must see fasting as an invitation. Scripture is full of this invitation.  God invites us to fast because God wants us to desire more of God’s presence, intention, and will. If we say yes to God’s call to prayer and fasting, God will honor God’s promise to heal and restore God’s people.

David spoke about fasting as one way he humbled himself before God (Ps. 35:13; 69:10). I want to humble myself before God. I am tired of the struggle.  I am confused in mind, and pained in heart. I have been reasonably successful and affirmed in much of what I have attempted in ministry, but with the division that is obvious and ominous,  I urge us to become humble and recognize that this is one of those situations that can be resolved only “by prayer and fasting.”

Let’s heed Mr. Wesley’s word about in what manner we are to fast. “Let it be done unto the Lord, with our eye singly fixed on Him. Let our intention herein be this, and this alone, to glorify our Father; to express our sorrow and shame for our manifold transgressions of his holy law; to wait for an increase of purifying grace, drawing our affections to things above; to add seriousness and earnestness to our prayers; to avert the wrath of God, and to obtain all the great and precious promises which he hath made to us in Jesus Christ…Let us always join fervent prayer, pouring out our whole souls before God, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, humbling ourselves under his mighty hand, laying open before him all our wants, all our guiltiness and helplessness” (ibid.).

How then shall we pursue it?

Wesley suggested a pattern for those in  Methodist classes and societies.  After the midday meal, refrain from solid foods until tea time the following afternoon. World Evangelism of the World Methodist Council has been calling people to make Thursday to Friday the fast time. The Confessing Movement is calling the entire United Methodist Church to join us in prayer and fasting using this method. Of course we urge prayer and fasting in whatever way is possible for you, but we believe it will be powerful and redemptive for our entire connection to pray and fast together for the unity of our church….unity in Christ, which he wishes us to experience. Let’s do it together on Thursday and Friday.

Immediately after Paul’s Damascus road conversion, he fasted for three days, waiting to receive clear direction from the Lord (Acts 9:9). That was a pattern throughout the New Testament…the Church fasting for supernatural wisdom and direction. While in Antioch, Paul and his team fasted and prayed for prophetic direction. They were given a strategic mission assignment to reach the Gentiles (Acts 13:1-2). This mission tour changed history.  Paul and his team again prayed with fasting when they needed to select and commission the elders of the new churches that were born out of their missionary journey (Acts 14:23). Can we follow in that pattern?

The spirit of hopelessness is rampant, the calls for division are being sounded, plans that might give us unity are being presented, and frustration and confusion are pervasive. The time is ripe for embracing voluntary weakness through prayer and fasting. Christ cannot give us unity if we are not willing to receive his grace and the unity that is his gift to the church. Could it be that this can come only through prayer and fasting?

We are examining this Teacher-Student-Teacher relationship between Paul, who invested in Timothy and expected Timothy to invest in others as a model for not only how, but what to pass “downline.”

Last week we opened in chapter 1 of 1 Timothy where Paul, before teaching even the first “what,” sets the context – Grace. Everything that will be taught, should be taught in the context of Grace. Paul points at the Grace of God for us and then calls us to be examples of grace by being givers of grace.

This week in chapter 2 Paul picks up the first theme that he wants to pass on to Timothy and wants Timothy to pass on to others.

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (1 Timothy 2:1-15)

A Difficult Text

When we were looking at the plan for preaching over the summer and felt really led by the Holy Spirit to spend the summer in preaching through 1 and 2 Timothy, I wasn’t really paying attention to the details of 1 Timothy chapter 2. We can all acknowledge that this is a very difficult text. I would absolutely agree that it is a difficult text—but I think it is difficult for a different reason that you might expect. It is not difficult to understand. It is difficult because most of us (I would guess especially the women) don’t like what it has to say.

I want to tell you right up front that this is a difficult text for reasons I want to walk through with you today—that is, this text is difficult because it is very hard to do what it asks us to do and here is what it asks us to do—live your life with others in mind. 

Now lets talk about the details and work our way back to this truth. As Paul begins to instruct Timothy he begins by saying…

Pray for All People (2:1-4)

I urge you…pray for all people.

That doesn’t sound too controversial does it? I mean, simple enough, pray for everybody.

But Paul particularizes what he means by All…

Pray for the Kings. Again, simple enough right? However, the weight of this command can only be seen when we remember that the Roman Emperor when Paul wrote this Epistle was the cruel monster Nero—who later put Paul and Peter to death. Paul is urging that we pray for our present rulers, no matter how unreasonable they may seem to be.

This is foreign to us. I doubt many Republicans pray regularly for our Democratic President, at least not good prayers for him. I doubt many Democrats prayed regularly for our Republican President when we had one. Complain about him, yes. Whine about him, yes. Criticize him, yes. How about pray for him?

Paul also adds to pray for “all those in authority” in various levels of government. The purpose of this is very logical and significant: “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty.” The fact that we are permitted to assemble peaceably for public worship is dependent on our rights under law—law as upheld and enforced by our legislators, administrators, and judicial leaders. Pray for them.

Then Paul connects prayer and the way we live to the salvation of all humanity. He says, “our praying and our quiet lives of godly dignity please God. So, Pray and live in a way that everyone is saved and comes to understand the truth.” Obviously everyone includes kings and those in authority and “everyone else.”

So pray for everyone. Ask God to help them, give thanks for them and pray for them to come to a saving knowledge and understanding of the truth. Now I want to ask you–who or what is the focus of the prayers that Paul is instructing Timothy to offer? Others.

When we compare what Paul instructs Timothy to do with what our most basic prayers often sound like what we find is that Paul says the focus of prayer is others but most often we experience that the focus of prayer is me. Help me, give me, guide me, show me, lead me, teach me.

Paul’s instruction to Timothy regarding prayer is to make your enemies, that leader you don’t agree with, that leader you don’t respect, those in authority over you and the unknowing, unbelieving world—make them the focus of your prayers. Live your life with others in mind and specifically, pray your prayers with others in mind.

But he doesn’t stop there…

Men: Live Lives of Integrity (2:8)

“In every place of worship I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God.” Lifting up one’s hands in prayer is often mentioned in the Old Testament (e.g., 1 Kings 8:22; Psalms 141:2; 143:6). It is a natural gesture, indicating earnest desire.

The word for holy here is “devout, sincere, pleasing to God” (The word “holy” here is not the more common hagios, but hosios, which means “devout, pious, pleasing to God”). Paul says, I want men’s lives to match their prayers.

What did he just tell them to pray for? Others. So what is he telling them to live for? Others.

This “devout, sincere, pleasing to God” prayer is the directive to live in right relationship with God—to be at peace with God—to not live in the tension between praying one thing and doing another. Let your prayers and your life be aligned. Pray for others and work for and live for others.

And that means not only live in right relationship with God, but live in right relationship with the other people God has put in your world.

Paul is echoing the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:23-24 where he commands, “so if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

Men: let your living for others match your praying for others. This means dealing with the division between you and God and the division between you and others.

Live your life with others in mind.

Women: Live Lives of Modesty and Submission (2:9-12)

This is no doubt the most controversial part of the text today.

To understand exactly what is at stake we have to see it against its historical background. This passage is written against a Greek background.

Ephesus, where Timothy was when this letter was written to him, was an ancient Greek city. Ephesus was the home of the Temple of Diana the Greek goddess with hundreds of priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. The Temple of Aphrodite in Corinth also had thousands of priestess prostitutes—who were constantly displaying themselves and drawing attention to themselves with elaborate dress, jewelry and hairstyles. This was part of Greek culture and specifically at Ephesus.

Add to this the fact that the respectable Greek woman led a very confined life. She lived in her own quarters into which no one but her husband came. She did not regularly appear at meals and only rarely in any public assembly and never on the street alone—because someone would have concluded she was a temple prostitute.

When we understand this about the culture, we see a little more clearly why Paul wrote what he wrote to Christian women. The Christian woman is not to adorn herself with “gold or pearls or expensive clothes” so as to draw attention to herself. This is what the prostitutes did. Rather, Christian women are to adorn themselves “with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.”

It is important to note that Paul does not forbid jewelry or dresses or attractive hairstyles. What Paul instructs is a decent and orderly and appropriate way so that when people notice you they don’t notice those things—they notice the good things you do in the name of God (2:9-10).

Likewise, Paul’s instruction for women to not teach men and to learn quietly. If in any Greek town Christian women had taken an active and speaking part in the work of the church, the church would inevitably have gained the reputation of being the resort of prostitutes—because those were the only women who had a public life.

Paul did not forbid women from an adorned life, but instructed them to pursue a life that was rightly adorned (appropriate dress, jewelry and hairstyle) and consisted of appropriate action (actions that pointed to God and not to themselves). And Paul did not prohibit a public life, but in this context, in public, an orderly life—a life that did not draw attention to itself either by an overly public life of teaching and leading. Jesus and Paul valued women their gifts and their ministry and elevated them to places that society and culture in no way afforded them.

Yet in Paul’s ministry:

• Eodia and Syntyche were women who labored in the Gospel (Philippians 4:2-3)
• Philip the evangelist had four daughters who were prophetesses (Acts 21:9)
• Lois and Eunice were held in the highest honor (2 Timothy 1:5)
• Phoebe was a deacon in the church in Cenchrea (Romans 16:1)
• And Paul’s summary statement is in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

So what are we to make of Paul’s clearly high view of women and their gifts compared to his statements here? That there is some specific reason that Paul is telling Timothy to tell the Christian women in Ephesus to dress modestly, draw attention to yourselves by actions that point at God and live an orderly life. Do you know what that specific reason is?  Paul is telling the women—Live with Others in Mind.

Live with others in mind—pray for everyone—even the king who is persecuting you.

Live with others in mind—men—let your life match your prayers—pray for others/live for others.

Live with others in mind—women—don’t draw attention to yourselves—live a life that points at God. This living with others in mind could be confusing—because I thought we were supposed to live with God in mind—his purposes, his plan, his glory and acclaim.

If you will notice there is a section of scripture vv 5-7 that we passed over. In all of the writings of Paul there is an intent to declare the central truths of the faith. Paul includes that teaching here. He articulates four central truths:

1. There is only one God
2. And one Mediator—Christ Jesus
3. He (Jesus) gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.
4. At God’s appointed time.

Why does Paul sandwich those truths here between his call to pray for others and his call for men and women to live for others?

He is saying, “Here is why I am asking you to do this: Jesus did this for you.”

The Son of God became Mediator—he gave his life with you in mind. He gave his life to purchase freedom for you.

When Paul writes to the Philippians he says it this way:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

In case you missed it, Paul begins that passage with “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” As his people, we do what he did—we live our lives with others in mind. Verse 3: this is good and pleases God our Savior.

The very easy application from today’s sermon is to tell you to pray for everyone, the President, the congress, the Govenor and the legislature, the Mayor, and the city council.

But the harder call is to actually live your whole life with others in mind.

We live in a country whose fundamental tenant is freedom. But that central tenet has regrettably devolved into to non-consideration/personal freedom at the expense of others. “I can do what I want to do, say what I want to say, dress how I want to dress…and it is my right…I don’t care what you say—or more significantly how it affects you.” But Paul says, Christians—followers of Jesus—follow Jesus in Living your Lives with Others in Mind.

They not only pray for others—they live for others. And if that means changing the way we think and act and dress and behave for the benefit of others—we do.

You want to know what to pass down the line? It is this: your life is not your life. It is Christ’s, and Christ would have you live your life with others in mind.