2 Timothy 1:9-10 “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”

Have you ever thought about how your life might be different if you weren’t a Christian? There is fun you could be having, but Jesus has ruined it for you, because now you feel guilty if you do it. Think of the things you could buy if you could have all the money you put in the offering plate back. I don’t mean to brag, but I graduated near the top of my high school and college classes. Think of the schools I could have attended, the careers I could have pursued, the wealth I could have accumulated, the respect I might have commanded.

But here we are, you and me–Christians, believers, Jesus’ disciples, children of God. He has saved us from the “fun” that would have cost us our souls for all eternity. He saved us from the self-centered life that would have traded the genuine heaven for a really poor, temporary, cruddy version on earth.

In their place we have been called with a holy calling. We have been set apart by God and made something special. We have been singled out by him to be his very own. Then, we have been given a part in the most important project in history, the greatest rescue operation the world has ever seen. Your life, my life, has meaning and purpose that will make a difference for humanity for all eternity, though now we might struggle to see what that is day by day. Maybe God is using you to save a family member, a neighbor, a grandchild, a classmate, the person who fills your prescriptions, a stranger you will not meet for another five years, or a citizen of another country on another continent who doesn’t even speak your language.

You realize that merely having this calling is like winning the spiritual lottery, humanly speaking. We weren’t chosen for any qualifications: “Not according to our works,” Paul says. We didn’t impress God with our work ethic. We didn’t win him over with our stellar behavior. We didn’t look any different than any of the other seven billion people he could have called to faith and service. For our part, we were exactly like everybody else.

But he called you. And it wasn’t dumb luck. It was part of God’s careful plan, part of the oldest plan he ever made. He called you “according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.” In that ageless emptiness before the Lord ever said, “Let there be light,” he was already thinking about you. He knew how he was going to make you, knew you by name, knew that he would overcome any obstacle and move any mountain that stood between him and having you. He decided to make you his own.

And that is what he did. “This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Jesus came, died, rose, returned. His gospel revealed, proclaimed, explained, and impressed life and immortality on the hearts of God’s people everywhere. Today you hear it calling. Today it claims you as God’s own. Today you embrace it for yourself.            

Nothing will ever give you more than this gospel. Nothing will ever be more important for the people we know or meet. Share it, and enjoy the gift that surpasses all others.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment” (CSB).

The gospel does not leave those who believe unchanged. It convinces us that, for Jesus’ sake, God has forgiven every sin. No payment is necessary on our part. No more punishment is required. All we owed was satisfied at the cross. It convinces us that, though we die, God will raise us from the dead. Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead is proof of the fact. Death no longer ends our hope and condemns us to hell. It opens the door to a new life, a vastly better life, a heavenly one.

Those who have been set free from their fear of God’s judgment and free from their fear death have really been set free from every other fear as well. We may not be excited to experience some unpleasant episode or another. But if we live every moment under God’s grace and death itself only improves our condition, what more do we have to fear? What can anyone or anything truly do to us? We have been given a new life, a new spirit inside of us, fully capable of coping and conquering anything the world throws our way.

Paul describes that spirit as a spirit of power, of love, and of sound judgment. It is a spirit of power because it actually energizes and enables us to do what God asks. Super-hero movies have been popular for many years: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Avengers, and more. From time to time, I see posts on Facebook asking what your super power would be if you were a super-hero. Could you fly, perform feats of super-strength, or move lightning quick?

As a believer in the gospel, you actually have super-powers given by God with your faith. You have a spirit of love that can care about people others would not. You can love your enemies. You can make sacrifices that don’t serve you in the least but only benefit someone who frankly doesn’t deserve your kindness. You can answer insult with blessing, injury with help, offense with grace.

You have a spirit of sound judgment that doesn’t overreact to every setback you suffer. You know it’s not the end of the world, and that with the Lord you will get through this. You aren’t deceived by every appealing lie you’re told. You aren’t carried away by every pseudo-spiritual trend. God has given you super-powers that see through the fog and smokescreens intended to confuse you and mislead your faith.

So God has given you the super powers you need to lay aside the false shame the unbelieving and the ignorant try to use to shut you up and shut your faith down. His word gives you the sound judgment to see through it. His grace gives you the love to respond with grace. And his power makes you and me ready to share in suffering for the gospel, which has brought us such gifts.

2 Timothy 1:7-8 “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God” (CSB).

Preaching the gospel landed the Apostle Paul in prison. Jail cells were nothing new to him. He had lived in them for a time in Jerusalem, Philippi, Caesarea, and Rome. But this time was different. This time he wasn’t in prison because someone had made false accusations. This time the government itself wanted to get rid of him. Leaders at the very top had begun to see Christian teachings as a threat to the Roman way of life. They didn’t fit the kind of society they were trying to build. Christians refused to participate in state-sponsored religion. That was seen as divisive. Christians were breaking down traditional beliefs and practices about class and social position. The authorities worried that it would be hard to govern people who didn’t know or accept their place. To the Romans, Christian beliefs weren’t just wrong. They were dangerous. People like Paul who spread them had to go.

The beliefs judged unacceptable have changed. The consequences for promoting them are less severe. But similarities remain in the dynamic between faithful Christian teaching and our broader culture today. You are certainly aware that June is pride month. Biblical Christians don’t want gay people to be hurt or mistreated. But they also insist that marriage, by definition, will always be limited to a man and a woman (see Matthew 19:4-6). Sexual activity belongs only inside the married relationship (see Hebrews 13:4). Leaders in many industries, judges in courtrooms, teachers and administrators in the universities, and a large percentage of the general population find such historic Christian beliefs not just mistaken, not just ignorant, not just a quirky old-fashioned way of looking at it, but dangerous, mean, and immoral. Christianity’s consistent, two-thousand-year-old teaching on matters of sex and marriage should not be tolerated, to their way of thinking. Christians should be shamed into giving it up, if necessary. This may mean denying them positions of leadership, maybe the opportunity to work at all. Some of those who resist should be made public examples of. This has been especially true in the entertainment industry.

Note that the teachings that landed Paul in prison were not the death and resurrection of Jesus per se. I don’t know that the Romans cared what the Christians believed happened to Jesus or who he was. It was the Christian way of life that gave them grief. But the Christian teaching all hangs together as a unit. It’s not as though we get to pick and choose which things Jesus’ taught we want to follow. Paul understood the temptation for Timothy to be shamed out of his Christian beliefs.  

We need to understand the temptation and the pressure to be shamed out of ours. “So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner.” Following Jesus may mean taking some grief for what we believe, for any number of unpopular teachings. Paul is saying to us here, “Don’t give in to the shame others try to impose. Lay it aside.”

Numbers 6:26 The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

The Lord turning his face toward us is very similar to the picture of his face shining on us. Everything in his face is lifted up: the corners of his mouth, his eyelids and eyebrows, his whole head. He is happy and pleased, not because we have been so good, but because he has made us the objects of his affection and the recipients of his love.

Knowing that God is smiling on me and loves me every day gives me peace. It settles my heart. Like you, I feel bad about my past. There are so many things I have done or said that are “cringe-worthy.” I hope that the people who witnessed them have short memories, but I certainly haven’t forgotten. A sense of embarrassment or guilt still clings to the memory.

Like you I get frustrated with my present. So many days I get none of the things done I had planned. Interruptions, distractions, little emergencies, mental blocks, and sometimes just the wrong talent set get in the way. My church isn’t where I thought it would be at this point in time. My home projects aren’t where I thought they would be at this point in time. My family life isn’t where I thought it would be at this point in time. My personal growth in faith and Christian living isn’t where I thought it would be at this point in time. And each new day, things seem to get a little further behind.

Like you I worry about my future. How long will my health and energy hold out? What does the future hold for my work? Will my preaching and teaching become irrelevant and out-of-touch? Will I be ready for retirement? Will I be able to retire?

Then God states his blessing: “May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” What needs forgiving has been forgiven. What is out of my control is under his control. What isn’t turning out the way I wanted is still coming together according to his plan. I shouldn’t stop working hard and doing my best. But every day the Lord is looking on my life with his favor and love, working my life out to serve me and the people I love. And as often as his word and his Spirit remind me, I have peace again, peace to replace my doubts.            

This and the other blessings God promises aren’t rooted in happy fantasies. They are based on the promise of his own word. Most Sundays, these words of promise are spoken over us just before we go home from church. Every day, his blessing will happen, just as he said. “In this way they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

Numbers 6:25 The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.”

There have been times in my marriage when my wife has said to me, “I love you, but I don’t like you right now.” At such times, I almost wish it were the other way around, that she liked me even if she didn’t love me. When she loves me but doesn’t like me, that means I am in the doghouse. She hasn’t given up on her commitment. Deep inside she wants the best for me (which is better than I deserve at the time), but she isn’t pleased with me in the moment. There may be a scowl on her face, and I am in for some sharp words. It’s not a happy day.

When she likes me, I get smiles. Her eyes have that twinkle in them. Her whole face is brighter. That is something like the picture we have of the Lord here, making his face shine on us. We don’t distinguish God loving us and liking us in the way that people sometimes do. But when God’s face is shining on us, he is looking on us with a smile, because he is pleased.

Of course, he has every reason to keep us in his doghouse forever. Not a day goes by that we don’t offend him with our sin. If someone hurt or offended us so constantly and consistently, we would come to the end of our patience. We would do what we could to cut all ties and contact with them.

This points out the truly remarkable thing about the Lord’s nature. As David says in Psalm 103, “He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” This is grace. The Hebrew word for grace, which lies at the root of our names “Hannah” and “John,” pictures someone in a position of authority and plenty looking at the need of someone subject to them. But that need has not come honestly, or innocently. It has come as the result of their own selfish, knowing bad behavior. Still, that doesn’t stop the person in authority from giving help to the person in need.

That goes against just about every human inclination, doesn’t it? Almost every day I see someone holding up a cardboard sign, begging for money at a stop light. I don’t even know these people, but my mind can’t help but wonder if they haven’t gotten themselves into their mess by substance abuse or laziness. Do we use our unproven suspicion to justify not offering any help at all?

Our Lord certainly does know what lies behind our spiritually needy condition. He knows the sins we have committed and how much we have enjoyed them. But he is gracious. He helps even though we have no legitimate claim on his help. He forgives, and he paid the supreme price for that forgiveness with the life of his Son.

This part of the blessing takes us especially to Jesus’ work, then. Through him, God’s grace has saved us and now brings us every other spiritual blessing. Such grace and sacrifice leave us no reason to doubt that the Lord is blessing us, even now.

Numbers 6:22-24 “The Lord said to Moses: Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you.’”

When your pastor says, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” it doesn’t mean “keep” in the sense of “retain possession.” The Lord certainly intends to do that, too. One of the big messages of your baptism is God saying, “This one belongs to me now, and if the devil wants him (or her) back, he is going to have to fight me for him.”

You remember Jesus’ promise as our Good Shepherd, “No one can snatch them out of my hands.” I have been saying to my wife for some time now that we need to go through our bedroom closet and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. The old favorite shirt that feels so comfortable but has gotten a little stained and threadbare–it’s probably time for that to go. But the high-school jacket celebrating our 1982 football state championship– that’s still a keeper. The Lord keeps us around not because of our superior condition or special accomplishments, but just because he loved and redeemed us.

That, however, is not the kind of “keep” in the blessing. “Protect” could be a useful translation, though perhaps a little limited. This is more than a promise of angels, or supernatural intervention to protect us from sickness, violence, or catastrophe. Maybe we could expand this “keeping” to “preserve and protect.”

The Lord promises to take care of our daily lives and provide for our daily needs, the kinds of things that keep us alive and functioning. In this sense you “keep” your car by changing the oil and filters on a regular basis, washing and waxing the body from time to time. You keep your houseplants by watering them regularly. In the same way the Lord keeps us by seeing to our feeding, maintenance, and protection, as evidenced by the fact that we are all here today reading these words.

But because some of our parts may be a little worn, and some of them outright broken, we are tempted to doubt these words from the blessing. We don’t sense that God has been “keeping” us when we struggle to make ends meet. Chronic health conditions, like the asthma or allergies that will never go away, the high blood pressure or diabetes that is hard to control, leave us feeling neglected. Never mind that the momentary financial struggle has been the opportunity to see more clearly that God takes care of us, not because we are so talented and work so hard, but because he is active in our lives and puts people in our lives who love us generously. Never mind that we live in an age of medical wonders, and the health issues we battle day today would have killed us long ago if we were born in an earlier century. We may not understand God’s choices for keeping us as he does. But it is godless unbelief, not faith, that denies or questions whether he keeps us at all.

This keeping is our Father’s work. It is evidence of his fatherly love, even in the forms we may find painful or difficult to understand. Remember how Jesus once described it to his disciples? “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

That is just what he does. Have no doubt. The Lord is blessing you as he fulfills his promise to keep you.

Psalm 127:1-2 “Unless the Lord builds the house, it’s builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat– for he grants sleep to those he loves.”

The world in which we live can give its favorites many things: power, wealth, distinction. The Lord gives sleep to those he loves. Does that sound like a chincy gift? Isn’t sleep free? Or have you lived long enough and experienced enough of life to know that the Lord’s gift of sleep is the real treasure here? If this were a Master Card commercial, “(The Lord) grants sleep to those he loves” would be the “priceless” part at the end. Why?

All of us experience some sleeplessness. A colicky baby, nerves before the big day, or an occasional case of indigestion can rob us of a night’s sleep.

Then there is the chronic sleeplessness that comes because we can find no peace. When we aren’t sure how we are going to make ends meet, sleep can be hard to find. The bills are piling up, job prospects are drying up, collection agencies are showing up, and our stress and anxiety is building up. The future’s uncertainties haunt our thoughts and plague our dreams. Sleep is elusive while we live in a constant state of tension.

But nothing makes it harder to sleep than a guilty conscience. King David once described the misery this way: “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.” When we can find no peace with God, we can find no peace at all.

What if we could be sure he loves us? What if we could be sure that he forgives our sins? Then our consciences could be quiet. Then our worries about the future would be answered. Then we could lay our heads down on our pillows at night and sleep like a baby, because we could be sure that we were resting in his loving hands.

We don’t have to wonder whether or not we are those the Lord loves, to whom he gives the gift of peace and sleep. He came here to tell us himself– actually became human flesh so that we could see his love in action and hear it from his own lips. Jesus then took the sins that disturb our consciences and let them disturb him instead. He made our guilt his very own and took it all the way to the cross, where he gave his life to rid us of the curse once and for all. Now he lives again to run the universe for our benefit and assure us that when our eyes close in the sleep of death, they will open to a new day of life that never ends.

And do you notice that he does not say, “He grants sleep to those who are really good.” “He grants sleep to those who try really hard.” “He grants sleep to those who are better than others.” No, he grants sleep, he makes it his gift, to those he loves. It is available to all. It is yours right now by virtue of the fact that you are his children by faith. You know your sins are forgiven. You know that God is going to provide. You know the peace that can give you sweet dreams tonight and every night. So go ahead, and work hard. But know that God gives you peace, and sleep, as a gift of his love.

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Not every good missionary is an outstanding public speaker. Paul realized it wasn’t his mastery of rhetoric and grammar and vocabulary, it wasn’t his ability to move a crowd to tears or laughter, that changed hearts.

In Paul’s day expert public speakers were highly thought of, especially in Greece and Rome. For many, they were one of the chief sources of entertainment. There was no television, of course, and even a book could cost as much as a house. A gifted speaker could draw an impressive audience and wield a powerful influence over his listeners, more so than today. Paul may have worked hard at it, but he wasn’t counting on superior speaking gifts to win the Corinthians to faith.

We want our message to be interesting and our worship to engage the people. But that is as much as entertainment and winning souls have to do each other. There are those who say we live in an entertainment age, and we need to put on a good show for those who walk through our doors. We certainly want to hold the attention of those who attend our churches, but the message can also disappear under the dazzle of clowns, balloons, and juggling acts. What works for people is a message that offers the straight stuff, not our ability to spiff it up for them.

Paul mentions another thing that appealed to the Greek residents of Corinth: wisdom.  The Greeks were thinkers. They thought about the meaning of life and the best way to live. They thought about the world in which they lived. They loved thinking so much that they actually looked down on those who worked hard for a living. They favored people who did nothing but sit around and think and talk.

Paul knew that in Jesus Christ he had much more to offer than all the solutions the thinkers of his day invented. The Corinthians had the Epicurean philosophers, whose motto was “eat, drink, and be merry.” So do we. This wisdom tells people that if you have problems, you can escape them in leisure, or perhaps a bottle of booze, a pipe, or syringe. These solve nothing, make problems worse, and drive practitioners further away from God and salvation.

Then there were the Stoics. Stoics were realists who believed people should accept the way things are and take responsibility for themselves. They resemble those who think science, education, or self-help books and counseling will solve all our problems. Those may be helpful. They aren’t bad. But they are not the ultimate solution.

You see, we know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. The problem is that we still make the wrong choices anyway. The problem is sin. It doesn’t just make our lives miserable; it destroys them eternally. Paul’s solution was superior to “superior” worldly wisdom.

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Jesus was the answer. Knowing him is everything people need to experience God’s power in their lives. Paul’s own appearance and life were in many ways rather ordinary. He admits, “I came to you in weakness and fear, with much trembling.” When he came to Corinth he was at a low point in his ministry. He had been chased out of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. They laughed him out of Athens. He suffered health problems that made him weak. Knowing Jesus Christ and him crucified didn’t remove all the problems in Paul’s life.

Nor will it for us. It doesn’t mean our problems suddenly vanish. In some ways our problems may multiply. Remember Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount?  “Blessed are you when men insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

But knowing Jesus equips us to deal with the one great problem: our sin. You and I haven’t stopped sinning. But when we do, we have someone to whom we can go with them. When we confess them to Jesus, he carries them to the cross and disposes them there. We experience God’s power as he replaces sin and guilt with peace and joy. Knowing Jesus Christ and him crucified means knowing he has taken my place, paid for my sin with his blood, reconciled me to God, and carried me to the very doors of heaven. Jesus Christ and him crucified is power—not the kind that gives me control over other people or all the circumstances in my life; the kind that changes my heart and my eternity. It’s all we really need to know.

3 John 1:5-6 “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love.”

We Christians don’t give the Apostle John’s third letter much attention. Chances are, you never memorized any passages from it. The whole thing is only 14 verses long. They form a personal letter from John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, to a dear friend, a lay person named Gaius. It seems Gaius had both a deep concern for the truth and a heart for mission work. If he did mission work himself, we don’t hear anything about it. Rather, John commends him for his faithful service at home. Gaius was supporting travelling missionaries by taking care of their day to day needs.  When they were in the area, he opened his home to them. When they left, he sent them off with food, money, or whatever else he could provide.

Gaius did this for them even though they were strangers. He may have known a few things about them. They had the Apostle John’s recommendation. They were full time workers in God’s Kingdom. He shared a common faith with them. But they were not people he knew deeply on a personal level.

We still work together in God’s Kingdom with this kind of faithful service at home. You likely support missionaries and teachers around the world through your gifts to your congregation, though you have never met most of them personally. They do the Lord’s work in places you and I are unable to go.

Sometimes it may pinch a little to support training schools and missionaries. But let’s not become so concerned about the work at home that we forget about spreading the Gospel around the world. Even in our mission work, a selfish spirit can creep in. We want to see big things at home. We want to be served at home. We feel less concern for billions of souls around the world who need the gospel, too. John would still say to Christians who support gospel workers they never met, “Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you.”

John would say that especially because of what it reveals. “They have told the church about your love.” The men Gaius supported recognized it wasn’t mere duty or obligation that moved him to do so. This wasn’t a stunt to win them as friends or a ploy to make them indebted to him. He wasn’t trying to make himself look good in the church. Gaius’s support was a product of love. His faith was expressing itself in acts of love.

That is not a purely natural thing. Faithful support of the strangers spreading God’s love in other places isn’t the result of heredity. Merely educating people won’t make them so smart they choose to do this. Naturally selfish people don’t fork over their hard earned dollars to support people they have never heard of. They want to know, “What’s in it for me?”

That was never Jesus’ question. He simply loves us. He didn’t live among us because there was something in it for him. He didn’t trade places with us and die for our sins because it was the natural thing to do. It was purely an act of unselfish love. He doesn’t continue to forgiver all our sins every day because he is somehow indebted to us. The debt runs entirely the other way. Yet he freely and willingly loves and forgives.

This love has the power to take hold of us. It transforms and leads us to do things we otherwise would never do. Now that Jesus’ love has set up housekeeping in our hearts by faith, we live for him. Gaius knew Jesus’ love. It gave him such a love for the Gospel that he opened his house to strangers who were leading others to Christ. He supported them from his own pocket.

You and I know Jesus’ love. It leads us to look beyond the narrow confines of our church’s walls. We work together with sister churches across our country and around the world.  In doing so we are participating in a world-wide mission even from home. Serving and supporting such strangers makes us missionaries with them, working together for the truth.