2 Timothy 1:8-12
“Dance With the One Who Bought You”
October 28, 2007
Associate Pastor Doug Forsberg
It’s Reformation Sunday, and in our collective imaginations we should be sensing the Scottish mist swirling about us, bag pipes piping hymns of faith, and Martin Luther speaking to the royal court, seeking to defend his life saying, “My conscience is captive to the word of God. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”
The Church, in the centuries preceding the Reformation, had distorted the Gospel, putting the focus on humans and the Church as an institution while taking the focus off of the work of Christ and God’s free gift of grace. The reformers, the faithful ones who were the architects of the Reformation, saw through these distortions and sought to speak of an authentically Biblical faith, one in which God reaches out to humans seeking a restoration of their relationship with him. We have inherited that faith, and on Reformation Sunday we celebrate the Good News of the grace that comes to us through faith in Christ.
There is a saying that is widely attributed to the former long-time coach of the University of Texas football team Daryl Royal: “Dance with the one who brought you.” In football terms this saying means playing to your strengths no matter your opponent’s strengths. The saying actually comes from an old country music song that reminded listeners to dance with the person who brought you to the dance. I guess some people need such advice.
Its advice we would be wise to heed as well, except I would change one word to reflect the reality of our walk with God so that the saying would read as follows: dance with the one who bought you. Throughout history the people of God have been marked by a distinct willingness to partner and dance with any number of gods and idols. At the base of Mt. Sinai the people had Aaron make a golden calf to worship, once they were in the Promised Land the Israelites began to worship foreign gods as if wood, metal, and stone could bring forth rain or protect them from their enemies, and before long, even the Church got in on this, making an idol out of good works and leading people to believe that such works could make them right with God. To do such things is to leave behind the God revealed to us in the scriptures. It is as if God has taken his people to a dance and they have left him to dance with another. The Lord speaks just such a message through Jeremiah when he says, “Return faithless people, for I am your husband” (3:14).
The Reformation proclaimed that human beings are not able to return to God on our own. That is why Jesus came, to bridge the gap between humanity and God, to make a way where no way existed. Paul reminds Timothy of this in the passage of scripture we are studying this morning. At the center of this passage, Paul writes this wonderful summation of the gospel: “[God] has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (1:9).
All those who follow Christ and trust in his saving grace do so not because they have earned God’s love, but because they have been called according to God’s purpose and grace. Paul reminded Timothy of this to encourage Timothy in the difficult task he faced in Ephesus working against false teachers. We are not called to Ephesus, but like Timothy we need to be reminded of our calling and its outcomes so that we will live out our faith with courage, and dance with the one who bought us.
One outcome of our having been called according to God’s purpose and grace is found in verse eight: we should not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. Paul found himself imprisoned because of his testimony about the Lord, yet here in verse eight he notes that he is really Jesus’ prisoner not the Roman Emperor’s. Paul feels no shame as a prisoner for Christ and he calls Timothy to do his work without shame. Certainly, the reformers also gave witness to Christ and the grace found in him without concern for the way others would view them. The greatest concern of each of these witnesses was to faithfully proclaim the Good News of salvation in Christ.
One has to wonder what our greatest concern is today. When we hear words like testimony and witness we get nervous. We start to think about people on street corners giving out tracts or professional evangelists who can bring thousands of people together to hear the gospel. There’s a sense in which we would rather just keep our faith quiet, put our heads down and plow through life without causing too many problems. Truth be told, faith in Christ causes problems. That’s why Paul suffered in prison, Timothy fought false teachers, and the reformers faced death.
Today, our bearing witness does not usually result in such dramatic challenges. In our culture, no one will hang you for being a Christian and while certain acts of faith involving civil disobedience might land you in prison for a few hours or a day or two, you probably won’t languish there. Even so, there is the perception that our faith shouldn’t be worn on our sleeves, that even to speak of it is to force it on others.
Let me suggest that our testimony about our Lord is recognized in our actions as much as it is in our words. This is why Christians who are aggressive drivers should leave Christian bumper stickers and fish off their cars. Not every Christian is blessed with the ability to share their faith through their words, but every single Christian will share their faith as they live out their lives, and in so doing, they will be dancing with the one who bought them.
As Christians go to school, take tests, date, marry, go about their vocations, play, raise children, interact with their communities and grow old their lives testify to the grace of God at work within them. When those who do not yet follow Christ ask us about our hope, we will have perfect opportunities to give voice to our faith and to do so unashamedly for our lives will be our witness. Those who have been forgiven much have a story to share with the world. Jesus was not ashamed to endure the cross. The scriptures tell us he “scorned its shame.” We should not be ashamed to bear witness to him, for we have been saved because of the purpose and grace of God.
A second outcome of our having been called according to God’s purpose and grace is that we will suffer for the gospel. There is a cost involved in following Jesus. Paul recognized that cost as he endured prison, and he exhorted Timothy to join with him in suffering. Surely, Timothy suffered at the hands of the false teachers who were trying to wrip the Ephesian Church to shreds. In all of this these men were following after Jesus, the One who knows suffering in its deepest sense. Those who follow Jesus will suffer for the gospel.
Jesus says as much in Matthew 10: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles” (16-18).
Suffering for the gospel is a part of the Christian life. Notice that this is a specific kind of suffering. We aren’t talking here about suffering from accidents, illness and natural catastrophes. We also aren’t talking about the kind of suffering we bring on ourselves through our own selfish actions. Some followers of Christ are tempted to say they are suffering for the gospel when in reality the suffering they face is caused by their own behavior. When we are suffering for the gospel, that suffering will come about because of a deep love for a lost world that has come alive in our hearts. At the center of that love is Christ and others. If, after close inspection, we find that this love is directed toward the pursuit of our own interests, we can be sure that our suffering is not for the gospel.
In our world, some Christians do suffer for the gospel in prisons just as Paul did. These men and women have faced the consequences of living out and speaking the Good News and find themselves imprisoned. What would it mean to suffer for the gospel in our culture? Since our lives are defined by a relationship with the living God, we suffer for the gospel at exactly those points in our lives when following Jesus costs us something we value, something the world values. Those who have been on the road with Jesus for some time know that there is a cost to following him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian executed during World War II for his opposition to the Nazi party and Hitler, put it this way, “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his son: ‘you were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”[1] So it is that following Jesus includes the suffering that comes with obedience to Him: in dying to ourselves we live with Christ and in so doing we dance with the one who bought us.
But we do not live without hope or assurance. We are reminded in the passage before us that God has called us not because of our works but because of his purpose and grace. A third outcome of our calling is the assurance of faith offered to God’s people.
Such assurance is found in verse 10 where we are reminded that Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Assurance is also found in verse 12 where Paul proclaims, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” The final part of our journey with Christ is death, and this final passage of our lives is a mystery to us, for it remains unknown until we experience it. In the midst of the unknown nature of the experience of death, we can place our trust in the One who has gone before us, trusting that he will guard the salvation that has been promised to God’s people, trusting that we will rise with Christ on the new earth.
Each day, followers of Christ lay down their own lives, saying, “Not my will be done, but yours, Lord.” They know that to die in Christ is to rise to life. We see this in our baptism and we believe it to be true, for just as we follow Christ in life, we follow him in death and in so doing we rise with him to new life in the resurrection (Rom 6:8-11), for death has been destroyed.
A picture of the salvation promised to God’s people, the good thing that Christ has guarded for us, is found at the end of Revelation. Listen to what awaits the people of God: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (21:1-6).
On this Reformation Sunday we celebrate the new life we know in Jesus Christ, a life that comes to us not because of what we have done to earn it and not because we belong to a particular church. The new life we know in Jesus Christ comes to us as a gift from the Living God who calls us according to his purpose and grace. As we live this life in Christ, let us not be ashamed of our Lord, or fearful of the suffering that comes because of the gospel, and let us rest in the assurance that Jesus is able to guard what we have entrusted to him.
In so doing, we will continue to dance with the One who bought us.
May we do so Lord. May we do so.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.