Stop This Train

Message Transcription

No, I'm not colorblind. I know the world is black and white. Try to keep an open mind. But I just can't sleep on this tonight. Stop this train. I want to get off and go home again. I can't take the speed. It's moving in. I know I can't, but honestly. Won't someone stop this train? Don't know how else to say it. Don't want to see my parents go. One generation's length away from fighting life out on my own. So scared of getting older. I'm only good at being young. So I play the numbers game. To find a way to say that life has just begun. Had a talk with my old man. He said let me help you understand. He said, turn 68, you'll renegotiate. Don't stop this train. Don't for a minute change the place you're in. Don't think I couldn't ever understand. I tried my hand, John. Honestly, we'll never stop this train. These are the lyrics from John Mayer's 2006 hit Stop This Train. He released it on his third album, continuum, and he wrote it during a time of what he would call solitary refinement. He was dealing with double kidney stones. He was stuck in a hotel room because he didn't have a home to live in. He was still looking for a new house and and all he could do, he says, was be medicated, was try to eat what I could and just wait. I had my guitar with me and that's when he wrote this song.

A young man in his 20s, entering into his 30s, looking back upon his his short life up to that point, but but also thinking about what is to come and just seeing life begin to pass him by dealing with so many different challenges in his life, wondering what's going on in the world? What's my place in the world? It just all seems to be passing me by so quickly. Who am I? What am I supposed to be? Could someone stop this train? I just want to get off and go home again. It even if just a little while. It's a common feeling, I think, for young people as they navigate through different transitions in life. And we certainly have a number of those with us here today, folks who are getting ready to launch out of high school and into college. Or maybe we have some folks that are launching out of college and into the real world, right into to getting a job and beginning to pay your own bills and, and make your own way. Some of you have been at that for a while now. I certainly remember and resonate with these words. I remember many of the transition times in my life. Uh, the world just was moving so quickly and wondering, can we stop this train? I remember as a fifth or sixth grader, lying in bed one night wondering I'd heard this rumor the world was going to end.

And so my dad came to check on me and I asked my dad, dad, do you think. Do you think the world's going to end tonight? Could we stop this train? Is it possible? I remember as a teenager getting ready to head off to college? I know many of us, including Kayla and I, this week, will be taking our daughter to school. When I went to college as a freshman, it was at Pepperdine and we were living in San Antonio and I had a twin sister and a younger brother. So my parents said, well, we can't actually make the trip with you, but we'll take you to the airport and we'll load up all your stuff and stick you on a plane and fly you out to LA. I'll never forget that. Right? But the night before, wondering, can we stop this train? I remember as a young man getting ready to become a father and wondering what would life be like? What will this look like? How do I have the skills? Do I do I have the ability to do I know how to do this job? Or maybe as a young preacher stepping into a role I'd never had before. And maybe as curious as many of you were, how in the world I got the job, but I did. And I was so pleasantly surprised each week as I'd go in and put my key in the door and it still worked.

It's still open the office door. They hadn't locked me out just yet. Could somebody stop this train? I just I want to get off and go back home again. Even if just a little while. Won't someone stop this train? These words to this song have meant a lot to me over the years. Because now I've moved past the young preacher and now I'm getting into the middle aged preacher. But they still resonate with me as I think about all that is before me and all that has happened behind, I can't help but wonder sometimes if Timothy maybe felt the same sentiment. Could we stop this train for just a minute? Remember, we meet Timothy back in acts chapter 16. Paul is on his second missionary journey. He's been in this area of Lystra and and Derbe the first missionary journey. His mother, his grandmother have become followers of Jesus. And and Paul meets this young man named Timothy in all the churches in that area. Give him a good recommendation. And so he invites Timothy to come join him on this journey. And so Timothy would would travel with him throughout the rest of that journey. He would be Paul's representative to many of the different churches. And in fact, one of the places he spent the most time, he was the pastor of the church in Ephesus.

He spent a lot of time there. In fact, that's where he is when he receives this letter from Paul. Most likely he was in his late teens, maybe early 20s, when he started this journey and in the church he was pastoring there in Ephesus. They were having some pretty serious spiritual problems. If you're familiar with the letter, you'll you'll know what I'm talking about. But just to remind us, as First Timothy opens up that first chapter, Paul tells him, Timothy, my son, you know, Paul and Timothy had a very special relationship. In fact, he often would refer to him as my son, my true son in the faith. He says, Timothy, my son, I'm giving you this command and keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected, and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to their faith. How about that? As a start, for your first ministry position, hold on to your faith. Some folks have shipwrecked. There's a battle going on, and I want you to be ready to fight it. Paul's second letter to Timothy. This encouragement is still happening. In fact, he he begins, and I preached this passage before he says, I'm reminded verse five of Second Timothy one, I'm reminded of your sincere faith with which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but it gives us power and love and self-discipline. So don't be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Were there times in Timothy's life when he just said, could we stop this train? Could we slow it down? Even Paul will go on to encourage him because again, this work he's been called to, it's really hard. It's not an easy job, he says. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it and how. From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, through faith in Christ Jesus. Hold on, he says, continue in what you've known. Continue in what you have learned, and continue in the inspiration because you know who taught it to you. And again, we hear this, this challenge for Timothy to hang on. But it's not just grin and bear it. It's lean into that community. You know, the people who passed this faith message on to you.

So hang in there. You know the lives that they lived, you know, the kind of people that they were, how they treated you. That's why I think this passage that Dominic, a young Christian himself, a young man in the faith, read for us just a moment ago why these words resonate so deeply with us and why it's important that we keep going back to them. A couple of verses right before we're dominant picked up. Let me let me draw our attention there so that we get a sense for the charge that, that Paul is giving to Timothy. Once again here in chapter four, he opens up with this warning that that some people are out going to be teaching some things that just aren't true. In fact, he calls it the kind of things that demons teach. Quite a warning there. It says things like you shouldn't get married, or that there are certain kinds of foods that you can eat or that you can't eat. Don't fall for it, he says. For everything God created, verse four is good and nothing is to be rejected. If it's received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer. If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you'll be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales.

Rather, train yourself to be godly, and if you have your Bible with you that you can mark and just invite you to highlight, circle, underline that phrase. Train yourself to be godly, for physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. And Paul reminds Timothy of some key things here. He says, don't chase after those godless myths, those wives tales. Rather, train yourself to be godly. And then he goes on to compare that kind of training to physical training. Now, any of us who take our discipleship to Jesus seriously, this is one of those captain obvious moments while at the same time a really challenging moment, right? Paul says you have to train yourself to be godly, right? And there's a sense that we go, yeah, thanks, captain obvious. Kind of figured that one out, right? You don't just drift into discipleship. You don't just sleep on your Bible under your pillow and and soak it in through osmosis. Paul says, no, no, no, it's going to take some training. In fact, training that's going to feel real similar sometimes to the physical training that you go into when you're trying to train your body. Now there's a part of us again that that know this, any of us who have ever tried to be in a relationship with someone, we understand this.

If you've ever tried to have a relationship with a significant other, with a parent or a child or a grandparent or a grandchild with a friend at school, you recognize it takes some work. It takes some intention. You have to make some decisions to prioritize this person in your life. Paul says the same thing is true in our walk with Christ, and our relationship with God is it doesn't just happen. So again, we kind of go, thanks, Captain Obvious, but but then on the other hand, we all recognize the challenge that that presents, don't we. How difficult it is. And maybe it's just me. Have you ever noticed how hard it is sometimes to remember to pray? Or to read your Bible? It seems fairly obvious, like. Well, of course that's what we should do, right? I mean, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. So then how is it that I can go through a whole day and not even think about it one time? How do you think that would go in my marriage? That kind of relationship? Oh. We're married. I forgot sorry, you know. No, it doesn't work that way. I had something so clear and obvious, and yet it's so challenging. Have you been watching the Olympics? Anybody been watching the Olympics so far? It's amazing. Kaylee and I love to watch the Olympics. We've been riveted by all kinds of stories. We love how they interject the stories before the events in which the athletes compete.

I was marveling at the story of Suni Lee. Some of you may know her. One of our. She won the bronze overall medal. And her story right there. For the last two years, she's been dealing with kidney disease. In fact, at one point, she gained £45 in two weeks. I know how that feels, right? It's two weeks right here. It's two weeks. It doesn't take much. Two weeks. So they were interviewing her coach, and she said, yeah, seven months ago, she was finally able to get out of bed to begin thinking, well, maybe, maybe I could go back into training again after two years of dealing with two different kidney diseases that had totally transformed her life and her body. Now, most Olympic athletes, they train for at least four years to get to the point where they could compete with the other athletes. Suni had seven months. Imagine the kind of physical training and discipline it took to get to that point. And Paul says that physical training, it's got some value. It's not that it's not valuable at all. In fact, our bodies are the temple. He'll go on in other letters to talk about how we treat our bodies and what we should do and not do with them, right? Physical training is important, he says, but it doesn't hold a candle to spiritual training.

But what you're going to find, Timothy, what you're going to find Broadway is, is it's going to feel a lot more like that physical training and that there are days where it's going to be really hard to remember. There are going to be some days where you're going to have to make some decisions to reorient your life and your perspective and how you deal with things, because this kind of training, it's going to take a little bit of work. Now, if you're like me, I don't like to hear that. Right? I like thinking of my spiritual life and feeling close to God, and that just kind of happens. You just wake up and oh, the birds are singing and the sun is shining and you walk outside and oh, it's wonderful, right? Paul says, yes, some days, some days it's like that. But, you know, most days it's not. Can I confess something for just a second? It. I had a bowl of ice cream a couple of nights ago that that wasn't very hard. That was pretty easy. I was like, yes, two screws please. Thank you. Yeah. I didn't have to strain. I didn't have to struggle to force that ice cream into my mouth. Right. It just right. I just because I've, I've got some habits in my life that just make that easy. I lived in such a way that that's a reasonable decision. Now, whether or not it's healthy or not, that's a whole other thing.

But but, Paul says, in our lives, we train ourselves to live a particular way. And Timothy is a young man. It's important that you you learn this early on because it will be with you the rest of your life. It will follow you wherever you go. Spiritual training. He says it makes a difference in this life and in the life to come, he says, because it actually helps you to begin to see and recognize the life that's truly life. He wants Timothy and all of us to know it's actually possible. Have you ever read through the Gospels and listened to Jesus talk about how to live and what to? Don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow has enough worry of its own. Don't worry about what you're going to eat, or what you're going to drink, or what you're going to wear. Right? We hear that. Yeah, I got it. No problem. Thanks, Captain Obvious. And then actually go, yeah, but I'm going to try to actually live that out. How difficult it is. Or maybe you read like in Matthew 11 when Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, for I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And we look at our life. And we wonder what are you talking about? Easy light. Like Timothy, we've been facing some pretty enormous spiritual challenges and struggles. How do we do this? And Paul gently, over and over again, keeps reminding him of who he is and who God's called him to be. He says this is a trustworthy saying. Timothy, you can count on this. You can lay your weight down on this. This is why we struggle. This is why we labor and strive. Because we put our hope in the living God. This God who's the Savior of all people, you and me included, and especially those who believe. Paul uses that word struggle because it's a struggle. Timothy, don't lose heart because we put our hope in the living God, the God who is alive, the God who saves, the God who has saved you and who has saved me. The same God who has inspired your mom and your grandmother to live out this life of faith. Timothy, that same faith. It's in you. It says, don't not only remember the work that you're doing, but. But in the one who you're working for. Command and teach these things, he says. And then he adds, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young. But set an example for the believers in speech and conduct and love and faith and purity until I come. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, to teaching.

Don't neglect your gift which was given you through prophecy, when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in this work, in these matters. Give yourself wholly to it so that everyone can see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. So much to say. So much could be said here, and so many have said it much better than I. But I want to finish with this I one of the reasons this passage is so inspiring to me. It reminds me Paul says age is a number. Timothy. Don't be confused. Now, as the church, I think we need to to really put our listening ears on this because this is often a challenge for us, he says, Timothy, don't let anyone look down on you because you're younger. I don't think what Timothy he's saying is, Timothy, you need to control how others see you. Like you can't manage or manipulate that. I hear him say, don't let your age be an excuse because God has gifted you. Don't let age be a reason. You don't step into the gifts that God has given you. Instead, he says, be an example. Even as a young man who doesn't have it all figured out, even as a young man who has probably more questions than answers, he says, don't let your age be a reason.

You don't live into the life that God has given to you, because God has gifted you, and that faith that was first passed down to you, it's still alive in you. You see, this challenge reminds me everyone has a gift. God has gifted every single one of us, old and young, male and female. Every single one of us God has gifted us. And he. He wants us to use those gifts. No matter our age. And one of the jobs that Paul reminds the church of over and over again is we age. It's it's our job as leaders in the church to equip and empower the young believers to find, discover, use their gifts and service to the kingdom. Now, I don't know about you, but but that wasn't always the example I saw growing up. And most of the time, the people in charge were older people. And that's good. There's a lot of wisdom in that. But have you ever noticed how easily it is you get just a little bit of power, how it's you start to stiff arm? Hey, that's my job. Thank you very much. No, I don't need help with that. I got it under control. Paul says, wait a minute, church. Young people just aren't the future church. They're the church today. Now, they may have some growing and some development and some maturing to do. Absolutely. Each one of us does, he says.

But those are leaders in the church. Let's empower them. Let's equip them. So he puts Timothy in this really tough spot. But he says, Timothy, I believe in you. God believes in you. He gifted you and he called you. And he's asking you to be faithful to what you know, to be true and to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep leaning into Scripture. And as young people are stepping out into their new life, how can we help? What can God do? How will he work in and through us? Paul says, keep leaning into Scripture, into the truth that shapes and forms you. How do we keep going? He says, lean into the community. Lean into those who have loved you, who have been an example to you. You know their lives. You know who they are. You know how they've been living. They have lived in such a way that it's impacted you, he says. Would you follow their example and be an example to others? John Mayer came to the end of his song. He ends with this little bridge into the final chorus. He says every once in a while, when it's good, it'll feel like it should. And they're all still around and they're still safe and sound. And you don't miss a thing until you cry. When you're driving away in the dark singing stop this train, I want to get off and go back home again.

I can't take the speed this thing is moving in I know I can't because now I see I'll never stop this train. Here, Paul, telling Timothy we're never going to stop the train. And the kingdom is breaking through over and over again, more and more each day. That there are moments in our life that will pass us by. And our temptation is to live with regret. And Paul says, would you step out of that and into freedom? There would be moments when you second guess yourself, I'm I'm not old enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't I don't know all the answers. And and Paul says, Timothy, would you keep leaning into Scripture? Would you hold on to the gifts that God has given to you? Would you keep proclaiming His Word, reading it aloud? We could keep teaching and preaching because if you do, something powerful, he says, happens that not only will you use those gifts and blessing to the church, he says, but but God's going to do some amazing things in you and through you. You'll find out that you not only end up saving yourself, he says, but those who hear that this example, this life, this witness of life that you live, you don't have to stop the train because you know we never will. Instead, we learn to lean into the opportunity. God, I pray this morning that you would bless us, that you would strengthen us, that you would encourage us and challenge us wherever we are on this journey of life, whether we're at the very beginning, getting ready to step into a new opportunity, a new challenge.

God, in those moments when we feel overwhelmed by all that's happening, as though life is speeding past us, God, we cry out, Lord, would you would you stop this train? God, would you remind us that you're with us, that we can put our hope in you because you are faithful? God? Would you help us to live in light of that faith? Would you help us to be an example in how we live, how we treat others around us, how we talk the very words that come out of our mouth. God, we don't have to be an old wise man or woman to to live that way. But God, you've empowered us by your Holy Spirit and you've given us gifts, and you've called us to use those. God, would you help us to learn to lean into and to trust your gifting in our lives? Yet as a community of faith, would you help us to be more fully committed to helping our young people learn to discover, to grow in their gifts, and then to put them into practice, not expecting perfection, but maturity? God, the way that you grew, Timothy, through his relationship with Paul, was you gave him opportunity and then you supported him.

He encouraged him. You walked alongside him. God, may we be those kind of people here at Broadway. I'm so thankful that we are. Yeah. Would you help us to double down on our commitment to your word, to learning it, to growing in it, our commitment to growing our relationship with you and time alone with you. Not because it's it's something we have to do, but it's something we get to do to get to know you. Would you would you speak to us continually through your Holy Spirit? Would you reveal to us what it is that that we are to be about the kind of people that we are to be, and to live it as an example to those around us knowing, trusting, believing, hoping that God, as we commit to living that kind of life, that you will save us and those that we get a chance to come into contact with God, you will shine the light of salvation through each one of us and through our church, into our community. God, we want to be those kind of people. Father, thank you for those who've come before us who've led the way in this. Would you give us encouragement through those Lois's and those eunice's in our life? And God, would you strengthen and encourage us to live into that beautiful future? Father, you're so good. We are so thankful. Uh, may we walk in strength this week? In the name of Jesus. Amen.