I love the resilience of the natural landscape up here!
The tree in our backyard had absolutely nothing on it about two weeks ago after winter/long dry spell, but with one bit of rainfall and some warmer weather it’s back! There are leaves and they’re green, it’s just exploded back to life in no time! And you see jacarandas with their purple leaves popping up all over the place, it’s such a beautiful landscape to observe in a season and out of season. I’m not a gardener but I definitely don’t mind observing some beautiful natural landscapes.
Today we hear this line – IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON – from Paul as he continues to encourage and support Timothy, who he saw as his ‘true son in the faith.’
In season and out of season, when things are growing and when they’re not, rain or shine, cold or hot > ALL THE TIME! Always be prepared Paul says to Timothy, be ready – ready for what, ready to do what??
We’ll look into that this morning, also acknowledging how that sounds like a lot – ALWAYS being prepared, ready, how on earth do we make sure we’re always prepared and always ready – we need to switch off sometimes too don’t we?! Surely it’s IMPOSSIBLE to always be ready, always be prepared…
Firstly, HOW do we get prepared, how do we get ready for the work has God has for us to do?
Important note here: We simply aren’t always ready, we’re not always prepared.
But God is!
He is always prepared, he is always ready! It’s not about our readiness or how prepared we are, but his constant readiness. He’s not only always prepared but he’s always acting in our lives, before we even know it. So we lean on that, not our own efforts but our God’s work.
There is always a source to tap into, to receive from, a source who makes his home among us in our hearts and minds. To trust in and hope in. Our heavenly Father made us and watches over us, his Son Jesus became one of us and died for us. The Holy Spirit is working in and through us, IN SEASON AND OUT OF SEASON. Those things are constant, our God is constant. We can depend on him.
So being ready and being prepared is NOT being able to say we’ve got our ducks in a row, all the boxes are ticked, everything’s in order. Good to have those things sorted, but that’s not what it means to be ready or prepared in God’s eyes.
What does it mean to be ready and prepared in God’s eyes??
Being ready and prepared is to trust in him. Fully depending on him, who makes us ready and prepared by saving us from our sin, forgiving us when we get it wrong time and time again, restoring our souls through his word and the body and blood of Jesus, and who equips us to – simply but importantly – depend on him. That’s the main thing, that’s what we need if we’re to have any chance of facing up to the challenges of life, of living in the world we live in, of being an outpost of God’s mission here in this place in 2025 and beyond, informed and connected to our history and those who’ve gone before us as well.
We are not capable of always being ready > we need to rest and recharge – which if you think about is actually a way of being ready, if we take the time in our personal lives to spend time with God through prayer, our own reading of the bible, conversations about faith, listening to music – all parts of working and then then resting in God’s presence.
And second, WHAT is the work God has for us to do, what are we being ready and prepared for?
Three ‘C’ words for us out what Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:2:
‘Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.’
We’ve got three words there to start with: correct, rebuke, encourage > which if we look into the orginal text/other translations we get three ‘C’ words: convict, charge and comfort.
And we can turn that around on ourselves here if we’re going to apply God’s word to ourselves before we apply to anyone else: be convicted, be charged, and be comforted.
Before we look into these words and their meaning for us, you might notice how Paul talks about ‘preaching the word,’ we might think of that as in what a pastor does.
But preaching the word is not limited to a message on Sunday > it happens when we share the gospel with each other, when we convict each other of the good news of Jesus, when we’re charged with being part of the mission of God’s work in the world, and when we’re comforted by and we comfort each other with the love of Jesus for us and for all people.
Be ‘CONVICTED’
We might usually understand being ‘convicted’ today being in trouble, being proven guilty for doing something wrong!
But the sense of this word has more behind it than that > being convicted is knowing to be true. We talk about being convicted in our faith, being sure of the hope we have, we confess our faith > another word that we associate with bad things but also has the sense of when we know something to be true.
Last week we spoke about ‘handling the word of truth correctly’ – that is applying God’s truth to our own hearts and minds, and from there it flows out of us and can reach other people. We don’t just point to the good book as the measuring stick for life, but the word of God lives in us and flows through and out of us > God’s word is bigger than we are, we tend to make God’s word smaller than ourselves but it’s God word that is bigger and broader than we can fully understand.
Be ‘CHARGED’
We are CHARGED with this CONVICTION… We can think of this as being CHARGED UP, filled up, ready to go!
How do you know if you’re charged up or if you need a bit more charging? Check the status of your battery, check the fuel gauge, check the state of your soul, check where your heart and mind is.
This is where we can us the analogy of a petrol station > we have the car, the vehicle (what God has given us to use, our hearts/minds/body and soul). We have the fuel (the right stuff, the good stuff – don’t put the wrong fuel in the wrong car!), which is the Holy Spirit working in us and through us. And we don’t stay at the petrol station, we go to the next place, charged up with the good stuff and ready to go! And of course our fuel runs out after a while, we need to come back for more > that’s the rhythm or the cycle of Christian living right there.
Be ‘COMFORTED’
This is the last one, really important one here: sometimes we might put the wrong fuel in our car, we might leave the battery on low for too long, we might make mistakes as we carry out this being CHARGED with CONVICTION, things might happen to us that we didn’t expect or didn’t want to happen.
But in all that we are COMFORTED. Our God is with us.
He can help if we’ve got a broken car, a broken heart even. If we’re feeling a bit out of sorts, or if we’re OUT OF SEASON. Maybe we feel like we’re past our expiry date, we need some refreshing and some restoring > That’s exactly what he’s got for us.
Our God has GREAT PATIENCE and CAREFUL INSTRUCTION in his dealings with us doesn’t he! So we are called to do the same.
We can take comfort in the fact that God made the petrol station, he made the car, he made the people in it. He provides the fuel, he provides the charge. He gives us his word, which tells us he with us through thick and thin. Always. Our God is ALWAYS ready and prepared, always charged up and convicted of his mission in the world, even if we’re not. Good to know!
What does comfort like that bring us? Relief, encouragement for the journey, hope that we’ve got someone working for us and in us and through us. Amen to that, please do your work in us our good and gracious God!
I want to finish now with the words we started with today > absolute comfort here, the charge we are convicted with from Psalm 121, how we’re ready and prepared and what we’re ready and prepared for, in season and out of season: Let’s speak these words together, over each other:
I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
The Lord watches over you – the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and for evermore. Amen.
Tom Kitson 