“Lessons from Soldiers, Athletes, and Farmers”
2 Timothy 2:1-13
10/14/07
We all have goals in life. Maybe your goal is
to buy a new car or a new house. Maybe it’s to save up for
that vacation you’ve always wanted to go on. Maybe
it’s to finish a project you’ve been working on.
Maybe it’s to develop a skill or talent you have. Maybe
it’s to lose or gain weight. Or maybe it’s to raise
your children right. Whatever your goals are, they usually
aren’t arrived at easily. To reach most goals requires hard
work and perseverance. And so, many of our goals go unachieved,
because we give up on them - the work becomes too difficult,
we’re interrupted by something else, or we don’t see any
progress.
One goal that we all share as Christians is the goal
to stand firm in the Christian faith until the end. This is a
goal that the Apostle Paul sets forth for Timothy; it’s a goal he
sets forth for the whole Christian Church. And this goal, too, is
only achieved through hard work and perseverance (hard work and
perseverance granted by the Holy Spirit through the Word, but hard work
and perseverance nonetheless). And here in the epistle text for
today Paul compares this hard work and perseverance to that of
soldiers, athletes, and farmers. Christians share with these
people similar goals and similar means by which those goals are
achieved. So, we’re going to look at each of these callings
- soldier, athlete, and farmer - and see what lessons the Holy Spirit
is teaching us about the Christian life from them.
First, it’s important to note that just as the
vocations of soldier, athlete, and farmer are callings of God, so the
vocation of being a Christian is also something God calls you to.
Though you may choose to be a soldier, athlete, or farmer, however, you
did not choose to be a Christian. You did not choose Jesus; Jesus
chose you. You did not choose to be born again. Just as the
vocation of being a son or a daughter was given to you at birth, so God
gave you the vocation of being His child at your Baptism, where He gave
you new birth through this washing of water and the Word and adopted
you into His family. This is important to remember, because the
goal of the Christian is not to try to become a child of God or to try
to earn the forgiveness of your sins, God’s grace, and eternal
life. To make this the goal of the Christian would be to do away
with Jesus as your Savior. But He has already done everything to
earn for you the forgiveness of your sins, God’s grace, and
eternal life. He did this by achieving the goal that was laid
upon Him by the Father. And that goal was to fulfill the Law for
you by perfectly obeying God’s commandments and by shedding His
blood on the cross to atone for your sins. And with His words,
“It is finished” spoken from the cross, the goal of your
salvation was achieved, and with His resurrection from the dead it was
confirmed. With His work conferred upon you at your Baptism, you
are now a child of God and your vocation is to persevere in the
Christian faith with God’s help and His strength until the end.
We need God’s help and strength, because as in
all of our other vocations we fail all the time at this vocation as
well. Hindrances arise and we get side-tracked from our
goal. Like other goals in our lives, we get tired of the hard
work and the perseverance it takes to reach the goal of the Christian
life - remaining steadfast in the faith until our Lord comes for
us. The work of persevering becomes too difficult for us,
something distracts us from it, or we don’t see any
progress. We become discouraged and we give up.
That’s when Paul uses soldiers, athletes, and farmers to
encourage us not to give up but to persevere with the strength and help
God gives us by His grace in Jesus Christ.
Consider first the example of a soldier. Now,
in our day soldiers are no longer drafted; they volunteer. But
Paul talks about a soldier here as one having been enlisted into the
service by someone else. Again, as soldiers of Christ, we did not
choose to serve in this vocation. Our Lord enlisted us at our
Baptism. At that moment we entered into a war that’s been
going on between God and the devil since the latter rebelled against
his creator. Once you, too, were on his side as an enemy of
God. But now you have been reconciled to God through the blood of
Jesus who has worked peace between you and God. You now fight
together with all the saints and angels on God’s side against the
forces of evil. But the victory has already been decided.
Jesus won the war when He defeated the enemy and triumphed over him
through the cross. The devil is a conquered foe, and yet he is
still allowed to prowl around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour. He knows his time is short, so though he knows he
can’t overcome Christ’s whole Church, he will try to take
as many individual Christians captive as he can. So, as a soldier
of Christ, you must be ready to suffer the attacks of the devil just as
your Lord did. But God gives you the help and strength you need
in Jesus. Paul writes in another place to put on the full armor
of God so that you might stand firm in this battle. That armor
consists of the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the
shoes of the Gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
A soldier must also always be on the alert, because he doesn’t
know when, where, or how his enemy might strike next. One of the
dangers is that he might get distracted by something like civilian
affairs. The life of a soldier might not look so appealing after
a while. You might get tired of this vocation, tired of always
being on the alert, tired of the warfare. Christians like this
surrender for the sake of earthly peace. They surrender sound
teaching. They surrender God’s do’s and
don’t’s to tolerance. They surrender the truth of the
Gospel. They say things like, “We all believe in
Jesus! Why fight over His words?” It’s easier
to give up than it is to stand and fight. But any soldier who
does this will not please the one who enlisted him, and he will not
persevere in the faith for very long. Even though the battle has
been won by Christ, such a soldier will not participate in the
victory. A Christian soldier’s only defense and weapon in
this battle is the Word of God. The lesson Paul teaches us from a
soldier’s life is to not let anything hinder us from fighting the
good fight of the faith with the help and strength God gives us through
His Word.
Next, he points us to the example of an
athlete. He writes, “An athlete is not crowned unless he
competes according to the rules.” In our day, we have seen
a number of athletes win gold, silver, or bronze medals only to learn
later on that they cheated by taking steroids. They didn’t
compete according to the rules; therefore, their victory and their
medals were taken away from them. The rules of a game tell the
players how the game is won. Break the rules and you’re
disqualified. The Christian is also described as an athlete of
sorts. In another place Paul compares us to runners in a race,
and the author of Hebrews writes, “Let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us...” But what are the rules of
this race? Most rules are written down somewhere. The rules
for the Christian are written in the Bible. But we’re not
just talking about the Law and the Ten Commandments here. Paul is
not saying, “Just obey God’s commandments and you’ll
get into heaven.” The rules are better understood as the
Word of God as a whole, that is, every word of the Scriptures, which
consist of both Law and Gospel. As Jesus says at the end of
Matthew, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep everything I’ve commanded
you.” In a nutshell this means proclaiming repentance and
forgiveness in Jesus’ name to all nations using God’s words
of Law and Gospel. To compete according to the rules, then, is to
preach, teach, and confess God’s Word in its truth and
purity. God gives us the help and strength we need to stand firm
through this Word. So, Christians cannot compromise the Word of
God; they can’t water down the Law or do away with it all
together, nor can they turn the Gospel into a bunch of do’s and
don’t’s or preach that Jesus is just one way of many to the
Father. They can’t change, take away from, or add to the
Word of God. Paul tells Timothy in his first letter to him to
“keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.
Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your
hearers.” And later on in this letter he writes, “The
time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, 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.” Instead, Christians must preach, teach,
and confess God’s Word in its truth and purity even if it means
they must suffer for it as Paul did. They must run the race
according to the rules - the Word of God - and let nothing hinder them
from doing this. Otherwise, they will not finish the race, but
will be disqualified. The grace that God gives us in Christ which
enables us to stand firm in the faith comes through the faithful
proclamation of the Word of God in its truth and purity. This is
the lesson Paul teaches us from an athlete’s life.
Then there’s the example of a farmer...
Here Paul writes that “It’s the hardworking farmer who
ought to have the first share of the crops.” I never
realized just how hardworking farmers were until I went to Kansas on my
first call. Those people work from before sun-up until after
sun-down seven days a week. There was always something that had
to be done on a farm. But while they were always working, there
was nothing they could do to hurry up the crops. They
couldn’t make them grow any faster. They couldn’t
make the rain come any sooner. With all their work they had to be
patient. Eventually, the crop would come and they would receive
the long-awaited reward for all their toil. Like farmers,
Christians need to be patient as they persevere in the faith, and God
works this patience in us by His Word. It may not appear that
fighting the good fight of the faith or proclaiming the Word of God in
its truth and purity is doing any good. You may not see any
progress, and you might wonder, “What’s the
use?” You yourself might even begin to wonder, “Where
is this coming that the Lord promised? Why is He waiting so
long? Has He forgotten us?” But the harvest is
coming. The Lord is coming with His reward for all those who
patiently endure the cross in this life and persevere in the faith with
the help and strength of the Holy Spirit, who plants the seed of His
Word in us and causes it to produce fruit. This is the lesson of
the farmer.
And so, the lesson that each one of these vocations
teach us is one of hard work and perseverance in the faith by the grace
of God, who enables us to do this as He works through His Word.
The soldier, the athlete, and the farmer all work hard, and they all
suffer hardship of some kind in their vocations, but they all patiently
endure, not letting anything distract or hinder them from their goals
by keeping their eyes on either the victory, the prize, or the
harvest. We Christians must confess that we are often not very
faithful soldiers of Christ; many times we have wanted to give up, many
times we have surrendered when we should have fought, many times we
have wanted to enjoy a life of ease in this life rather than fight the
good fight of the faith. We must confess that we are often not
very faithful athletes, either; we’ve cheated, compromising the
Word of God, failing to teach and confess it in its truth and
purity. Neither have we been very good farmers; we’re not
patient, we don’t depend on the Word of God alone to do its work,
we get discouraged and quit. And our Lord knows all this about
you. That’s why He has achieved the goal for you. He
fought the good fight of the faith, not giving up when the battle got
intense, even to the point of giving His life to save yours. He
let nothing distract Him from the goal that was set before Him.
He won the battle for you. He ran the race with endurance,
winning the prize of eternal life for you. He both plants His
Word and causes it to produce fruit, bearing with much patience the
evil in this world until harvest time comes. Therefore, as the
author of Hebrews writes, “Let us run with endurance the race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of
God.” As the Holy Spirit works through His Word, He will
focus your eyes on your Savior. The grace that God gives you
through Him and His Word is your strength to persevere in the faith
until the end. And we have His Word that “if we have died
with Him (which happened at our Baptism), we will also live with Him;
if we endure (which the Holy Spirit enables us to do through His Word),
we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him (and the Scripture warns
that we can deny Him), He also will deny us (but remember how the Lord
brought Peter to repentance concerning this); [and] if we are faithless
(which happens when our faith wanes), He remains faithful, for He
cannot deny Himself.” Learn the lessons that soldiers,
athletes, and farmers can teach you about persevering in the faith, and
keep your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of that faith, and
with the Spirit’s help which He gives you through His Word, you
will remain steadfast in the faith until the end. Amen.