We are continuing to study the
thought of 2 Timothy 3:1-7, especially the idea of verse 7 which says
that in the last days some will be “ever learning, and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth.” We’ve studied four steps to
coming to this knowledge – education, meditation, participation, and
evaluation. We worked our way through the first two steps in previous
articles. This article is the second on the study of participation.
Life is so dynamic. It is always
moving and changing. People grow and change and learn to love new
things. Whenever feelings and emotions are involved, situations can
change quickly. If we expect to learn how to handle these situations
in a Christ-like manner, we must learn how to hit a moving target.
Sitting and thinking just won’t get the job done. We must get
involved with doing the Lord’s work. We must be about our father’s
business (Luke 2:49). We must be willing to get out of the boat, like
Peter (Mat. 14:29). I have been studying and preaching a long time,
but I still learn what I’ve been talking about and what I need to be
talking about, by doing.
Now let’s consider a few
general observations about participation:
Man needs trials and tribulations
to grow.
Consider two examples. The first is about a butterfly. A man watched a
butterfly struggle to free itself from its cocoon. He tried to help by
freeing the butterfly’s wings from the tangles of the cocoon. He
watched the butterfly, waiting for the wings to dry and lift the
butterfly in flight. But the wings never worked – they were too
weak. What the man didn’t know, until he participated in the wrong
way, was that the butterfly is designed to struggle against the cocoon
to strengthen its wings so they can carry it in flight. The struggle
brings strength. What a lesson for us! What if we are made like the
butterfly in that our struggles are designed by God to make us
stronger (Rom. 5:3-5; 2 Cor. 12:7-10). So if we complain and whine and
expect someone else to ease our burdens so that we don’t have to
participate in them, how will we get strong enough to fly? We don’t
learn very well when we’re complaining. Do you have a difficult
spouse? Be thankful! Don’t look for a way to get rid of him/her and
get another. And don’t spend all your time waiting for them to
change. Stay-put and learn the lessons God is trying to teach you.
Marriage may be the best teaching institution God ever established!
The second example is a quote
from Thomas Edison – “Great ideas originate in the muscles.”
This observation also shows how important the act of using the muscles
(participation) is in stimulating the mind. Now, I know that all
spiritual work does not involve the muscles, but the principle still
stands. When we do something it makes an impression on our minds that
leads to a better understanding of our efforts. Did you ever think you
knew how to discipline a child only to try it and find it made the
child’s behavior worse? Sure, because our natural instinct is to
make the child act like we want it to act. We want to use a direct
route and tell the child what to be and how to feel. It didn’t work,
did it? You probably (hopefully) learned to use indirect methods to
make the child want to do what you wanted. For instance, if you tried
to bully the child into submission you probably only made the child
rebellious or showed him/her how to be a better bully. Neither are
what you intended. But by acting in the opposite way of your
instincts, by being patient and kind, you might show the child a
better way – a way the child would want to follow. Surprisingly this
works with adults, too.
Participation is essential for
faith to live. James
tells us (Jms 2:20) that “faith without works is dead.” This says
so simply what I have been trying to say – that education and
meditation without participation is dead. Works are essential to
assure that our faith is not vain. We may study love, patience,
humility, etc. and convince ourselves that we have them, but until we
are put to the test in these areas and have to prove ourselves by
performing, we don’t really know. I can say I have patience a
million times, but until I get in the first situation to exercise
patience, it’s all just words and air. And I don’t think faith is
any different.
We must participate in knowing.
Not all participation involves action. Sometimes it involves being
completely convinced by observing things happening around us. Consider
this idea in Psalms 46:10 – “Be still, and know that I am
God…” Do you know that God is God, or do you just know what you
have read and heard about God? There is a difference! Try
participating in life, in embracing the struggles of it, seeing the
weakness of the flesh, and you will see that God exists, He is great,
and He is awesome! But when will you realize this? In the midst of a
bad situation, say a car wreck or some other accident or a serious
illness? No, probably after this traumatic event when you look back
and think that it could have been worse, or that some unforeseen event
turned the situation for the better. Then you realize someone else is
in control and has been all the time. This has happened to me time
after time. It tends to make you an optimist!
Godly participation occurs even
in the workplace.
Colossians 3:23,24 speaks to us about our conduct in the situation
where we may spend most of our waking hours. And this may also be
where we are around people that we can influence most by our conduct
and conversation. This is the workplace. How do we do our job? With
enthusiasm, dedication, and determination, or by slacking, shirking,
and complaining? This sends a message about our faith, especially to
God! One thing we have to really watch is lying. It’s so easy to
stretch, bend, or downright ignore the truth to protect ourselves or
our client that we lie. We don’t call it a lie. We justify it
somehow. But when we don’t tell the truth as the truth, it’s a lie
and we are liars and our coworkers know it unless they are so busy
lying themselves that they no longer recognize a lie as a lie. Sounds
like someone needs a good example!
We must participate in Godly
conversation.
Consider the whole verse of Colossians 4:6 – “Let your speech be
always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought
to answer every man.” I cannot emphasize how important this is.
Through our speech we tell others about ourselves, what we feel, how
we think. We pass along family values and traditions to the next
generation. We comfort or irritate those around us. We make our
spouses crazy about us, or just crazy, period. What power our speech
has! Most disagreements are started with a poor choice of words and
the way the words are delivered. Know someone that you just don’t
like to be around, someone that irritates you or makes you stressed,
and you don’t really know why? Think about the way they talk, their
mannerisms and phrases, their body language. If you will study their
conversation, you will probably find the problem. That’s the easy
part. The hard part is making sure our own conversation is not equally
grating to others. And this is not necessarily sinful talk; it’s
just talk that is not smooth or Godly. It might not keep us out of
heaven, but it can sure keep us from taking someone else with us!
Jesus’ willingness to
participate in human mortality made him a perfect comforter. This is given to us in Hebrews
2:18. If participation is not essential, then why did Jesus have to
participate in mortal life to learn obedience (Heb 5:8)? Why did he
have to “suffer being tempted”? If even Jesus Christ, the perfect
Son of God, had to participate in human suffering, then who do we
think we are to escape it? This idea is so important not only to our
own individual growth, but to even understand God’s plan of
salvation for us through the mortality of Jesus. He suffered through
mental, physical, and spiritual attacks, and yet still did no sin. So
the next time you are tempted to “lose it”, or “just do it”,
think of what Jesus would do in your situation. If you are indeed a
Christian, this mental participation with Christ will surely keep you
from physical participation in an ungodly way.
Conclusion
We are all participating in life.
The fact that you are reading this proves that. Are we participating
in a way that will lead us, and others, to heaven? Are we being made
stronger spiritually each day by our struggles, or are we just being
frustrated? Are we making those around us stronger, or are they having
to accommodate us? It is our choice. I hope and pray that this study
has increased your understanding of the ways the Lord has designed to
make us worthy. What a joy it is to live with the knowledge of the
truth that God is in control of what is best for us!
Question:
Is it possible to know that we have eternal life? Most of the
preaching I hear makes me think we cannot be sure until we die. What
do you say?
ANSWER:
I want to begin by pointing out that it really makes little difference
what I say about the issue. I do not say this flippantly but
sincerely. We live in a day and age where opinions and feelings of
others are esteemed as highly and viewed as authoritatively as God’s
Word. What should be the basis for the answer is the Word of God. What
does it say?
With
that having been said we can turn in the scripture and find the answer
very quickly to the question. I John 5:13 reads,
“These
things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of
God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may
continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” (NKJV)
Notice
that John says that he has written to those who have faith in Christ
that they may know that they have eternal life. There is the
answer. John says that we can know that eternal life is a present
possession.
While
we have supplied the answer to the question, we do feel that it would
do us all good to follow John’s argumentation to this conclusion.
In
the 5th chapter of I John, we find that beginning in verse
6 through 10 that the Greek word for witness was used eight times.
This same Greek word is also used a little later in verses 11-13 where
it is translated testimony or record. John brings this up in order to
provide evidence God has concerning Jesus as His Son and the nature of
His work.
The
evidence that God gives is not so much proof of who Jesus is as it is
proof of the content of His work. Jesus came to redeem, to reconcile,
to ransom, to justify and to save man from sin.
As
we begin to examine the text we find that the content of God’s
testimony concerning Jesus is that we might have eternal life. Note I
John 5:11-13:
“And
this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this
life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have
the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you
who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you
have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of
the Son of God.” (NKJV)
The
point we want to emphasize is that John in this section writes of
eternal life as being a present possession. In verse 11 he tells us
that God has given (not that He will give) eternal life. In verse 12,
John says that He who has the Son has eternal life (not will have
eternal life) and finally he says the things of which he wrote were
designed to let us know that we have eternal life (again, not that we
will have it).
The
above is very plain. John says three times that we have (currently,
are presently in possession of) eternal life. So one might ask,
“Since the above is so plain, why would one think otherwise?” Well
the dilemma begins when one reads other statements of divine scripture
that suggests that eternal life is a future blessing. For example note
the following passages:
“But
in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are
treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of
the righteous judgment of God who will render to each one according to
his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing
good seek for glory, honor, and immortality:” (Rom. 2:5-7 NKJV)
“But
now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God,
you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” (Rom..
6:22 NKJV)
“in
hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time
began,...” (Tit. 1:2 NKJV)
Unlike
the three passages in I John mentioned before, these verses speak of
eternal life as being rendered to the saints at the end of time. Note
the references to the end and the hope of eternal life. We now must
ask which then is it? Is it a present possession or is it yet a future
hope?
Since
scripture cannot contradict scripture because truth cannot contradict
truth (and all scripture is truth) eternal life must have both a
present aspect as well as a future one. Too many times we as students
of the Bible are quick to forget that all things are not mutually
exclusive.
This
is the case with the passages in this article. Here different authors
to describe different concepts use the same term eternal life. For
example Paul is utilizing the term to describe that which begins after
judgment while John is using the term to describe the life we now have
in Christ because of the fellowship we enjoy with the Father and the
Son. Here again is a prime example of allowing the immediate context
to determine the sense in which a term is employed.
The
meaning of eternal life in I John 5:13, the eternal life that we may
know that we are in possession of, is the eternal life that is in
Jesus, God’s dear Son. Note how John began the epistle:
“That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,
concerning the word of life, the life was manifested, and we have seen
and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with
the Father and was manifested to us..” (I John 1:1-2 NKJV)
So
even as he begins so even he ends. His conclusion is that possessing
eternal life is knowing Him who is true and being in Him who justifies
and makes righteous. Thus we who are walking in the light as He is in
the light are cleansed of our sin and thus possess presently what we
shall have yet in the future! Eternal life is not something that
exists on a shelf somewhere, but rather is in the Father and the Son.
Since the Father and the Son are eternal life those of us that have
fellowship with them have the eternal life that is in them!
As
we conclude this article, we would be remiss if we did not bring to
the attention of readers one more time, the truth that eternal life is
only in the Son! Verse 11 of chapter 5 tells us that the eternal life
God gives is in His Son. It is to be found no place else. If we are to
be in possession of eternal life we must be in Christ who died for us.
Antithetically if we do not have Jesus then we do not have eternal
life.
“He
who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not
have life.” (I John 5:12 NKJV)
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