Lord, May I Be Ready, In and Out of Season

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.-1 Timothy 4:1-5

This morning, as I prepare to teach another class (one I had not quite prepared for), I am reminded of Paul’s admonition to Timothy: preach the word, in and out of season. These words are sticking to me so tightly right now, especially as I have had time alone, both in the word, and in prayer. That is my mandate, it’s my calling. To preach the word, whether it is popular or not. And what is the word preachers are called to preach? The Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Scriptures. As I’ve been studying lately, there IS no other Gospel. There isn’t a popular Gospel, or a Gospel for hurting people, or a health and wealth Gospel.

And this is the Gospel: we are sinners who have severed our relationship with almighty God. We are dead in our separation from Him (Ephesians 2), and we have no hope in ourselves. But God, rich in mercy, and at the right time, sent His Son, who is God, to be born as one of us, born of a virgin, and who, in His life time did what I could not: he lived perfectly according to all the righteous requirements He established before the foundation of the world. In His ministry, He promised eternal life to those who believed. He died in my place: the justice of God must be met, and the Father saw fit to place our punishment on Christ, that those who believer may be redeemed to the Father through Christ. He died, was buried, and on the Third Day, sealing the promise of eternal life, for He cannot die again, and, whether we meet Him face to face in this life, or we pass on and see Him in the next, we shall share eternity in and with Him.

This is the Gospel. There is no other. May I be ready to proclaim it in and out of season. May YOU go and tell anyone and everyone about the One who redeemed your soul. There is a world of folks out there who need Jesus (apart from us, that is), let us, with joy, in and out of seasons, share Jesus with everyone who we can.

Ephesians 2

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One in Christ

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

2 Timothy 3

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.