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I have found the Best Barbecue in Texas. I have only been in Texas
for 33 years, but I have found the Best Barbecue in Texas. This past
June, Texas Monthly ran a feature article on this very subject, and I
read it from beginning to end. I kind of suspected that I had already
tasted the best, I just wanted some confirmation. I wondered as I
opened the article would it be Goode Company in Houston, Salt Lick in
Driftwood, one of the two competitors in Lockhart, (Kreuz’ and
Smitty’s) Coopers in Llano, or Coopers in Mason. I was shocked to
discover that the best barbecue in Texas is only an hour away from
here in a town that I had not been to before yesterday – Lexington.
It is only open a few hours a week, on Saturday morning until they run
out, but it is worth the effort. My condolences go out to Heidi and
Savannah, two of our college students from Lockhart, and to our
resident members from Mason. However, I know barbecue fans, so I am
sure that you won’t let the opinion of Texas Monthly sway your loyalty
and convictions. Of course, all the great barbecue places have the
same basic steps toward greatness.
Having
read an eighteen page article on barbecue and having lived in Texas
for 33 years, I, a native of Ohio and an owner of a gas grill, will
tell you how to make great barbecue in three steps:
1)
Start with the best ingredients – wood, rub, mop sauce,
a brisket with some bend in it.
2)
Keep the fire going – and it better not be gas.
3)
Maintain the character of the flame – don’t let it get too hot or
uneven.
The
apostle Paul must have known a little about barbecue, because as he
wrote his second letter to Timothy he seems to be telling Timothy to
treat his gift from God as if it is a Saturday afternoon barbecue.
Look for those three steps in this passage of encouragement from the
mentor to his protégé. They are found in II Timothy 1:6-7. Hear now
the Word of the Lord:
6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of
God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of
power and of love and of self-discipline.
This is
the word of God for the people of God. In this passage Paul told
Timothy to use well what he had been given. Last week I referred to a
quote from Curtis Vaughan, a seminary professor of mine, who wrote,
“Each believer has been given a gift of grace, a capacity for
service; every believer has a contribution to make.”
If this is true, and I believe it is, God has given something for
everyone. You have a gift, it was designed for you. Imagine if
you will that there is a present on this altar that has a tag on it
which reads, “For: (Your Name) , From: God.”
God provides something for everyone.
The challenge then is for us use well what we have been given. I can
tell you how to do that in three steps:
1)
Start with the best ingredients
2)
Keep the fire going
3)
Maintain the character of the flame
Start
with the Best Ingredients.
Paul was careful to point out to Timothy that he had some amazing
ingredients. He had a gift from God that Paul had witnessed. He also
had a great heritage in the faith that Paul had seen in Timothy’s
mother and his grandmother. Timothy was a third generation
Christian. We don’t read about many of them in the Bible. He had the
best ingredients. After a brief reflection on these, Paul wrote, “For
this reason I remind you…” Those were good reasons.
I read this and started to
reflect on the ingredients that are part of my life. I am a
Christian, and therefore, have at least one gift of God in me. After
all, each believer has been given a gift of grace, a capacity
for service. I also have a wonderful
heritage in the faith that I witnessed in Grandma and Grandpa Gilts
and Grandma Vee. The last time I was in Ohio, I went to the cemetery
where my grandparents bodies are buried. I just sat there in the
quiet of an afternoon, eating Dietsch’s ice cream in the sunshine, and
thanking God for the wonderful examples of faith that I was given in
these giants. They are not the only contributors to my heritage. I
also have spiritual relatives that have impacted my life with their
sincere faith. I have a Paul
in my life, his name is Carroll Fancher. Last Christmas he gave me
and several other members of his spiritual and physical family a daily
devotional that he wrote over the course of last year. I have read it
every day and it has been a blessing to me. The thing that stands out
most to me is that several times he mentioned that in writing the
devotional he had experienced the greatest spiritual growth of any
year in his life. Carroll will turn 80 years old next month. He is
still yearning for God, still growing in his faith and walk with
Christ. I can almost hear Paul speaking to me as he points to my
grandparents and to my mentor, “For this reason I remind you…” I have
some of the best ingredients poured into my life.
What about you? What ingredients
do you start with? How has God placed in you a gift of grace, a
capacity for service? Who has God put in your life, through your
family and your faith community that would prompt Paul to point to
them and say, “For this reason I remind you…”? Use well what you
have been given. It’s a lot like making a great barbecue. The
first step is to start with the best ingredients. The second step for
you to use well what you have been given is to…
Keep
the fire burning. It
seems from reading this letter that Timothy was in danger of falling
into complacency. Look at chapter one of II Timothy. Paul told him
in verse eight, “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord
or of me.” In verse thirteen he
encouraged him, “Hold to the standard of sound teaching.”
In verse fourteen he exhorted him, “Guard the good treasure
entrusted to you.” Something was
going on that had Paul concerned that the pastor of the church in
Ephesus was in danger of his fire going out. So the apostle told him
to rekindle, which could mean
“kindle afresh” or “keep in full flame”. John Calvin wrote, “The
metaphor which Paul employs is taken from a fire which was feeble, or
that was in the course of being gradually extinguished.” Anyone who
has done outdoor cooking knows how important this is. If your flame
goes out or dies down, the meal is impossible to resurrect to the
quality that it would have been. Paul is warning Timothy that if he
gets complacent, if he does not make full use of what God has given
him, there will be missed opportunities for the kingdom. It was
imperative that he tend to the flame and not allow distractions to let
the coals go cold.
Distractions are a way of life
for us. With every technological advance comes another opportunity
for distraction. Take for example the most ubiquitous advancement
around us – the cell phone, complete with the capacity for text
messaging and surfing the internet. Don’t misunderstand me, I am a
huge fan of the cell phone, but they can be a little distracting.
This week I read, “It is estimated that cell phone
distracted drivers are four times more likely to be in a car wreck.
According to a 2002 Harvard University study, cell phones cause over
2,600 deaths and half a million injuries each year.”
It is so easy to be reaching for the cell phone, trying to respond to
a text message, or looking up someone’s phone number and forget that
you are going fast enough to completely destroy the car you are
driving along with its driver. We can get so distracted by what can
wait, that we lose sight of the most important element – keep your
eyes on the road.
The same thing can happen when
making full use of what God has given us. We can get distracted by so
many things and lose sight of the most important element. Keep your
eye on the flame and make sure it doesn’t go out. “Each
believer has been given a gift of grace, a capacity for service; every
believer has a contribution to make.”
Never lose sight of that. Use well what you have been given.
Keep the fire burning is the second step, but it takes more than
keeping the fire burning. The third step for you to use well what you
have been given is to…
Maintain the Character of the Flame.
Low and slow is the motto of the barbecue world. Maintain a
consistent flame at a low temperature, cook the meat slowly and evenly
and you have turned a 99 cent per pound brisket into a melt in your
mouth delicacy. Paul described the character of the flame that he
encouraged Timothy to rekindle. He stated first of all that it is not
a spirit of cowardice that God gives. This is a word used elsewhere
in describing the feeling one has in the presence of a wild beast.
Instead, God gives a spirit of power, the Greek word used here is
dunameis, which is where we
get or word dynamite. God equips each of us with the power to do that
which God calls us to do. Get that - God equips each of us with the
power to do that which God calls us to do. God gives us a spirit of
love, because all that we do in the name of God, must be done in
love. This is the Greek word, agape,
which is almost always the word used when describing God’s love. It
is more than the romantic love captured in eros,
more than the love of friends described with the word, phileo,
this is agape love - God’s
kind of love. Lastly, God gives us a spirit of self-discipline, which
enables us to aim our efforts precisely at the point where they will
do the most good. Paul illustrated this for Timothy in II Timothy
2:23 when he instructed his younger friend to have nothing to do with
stupid and senseless controversies that breed quarrels. That would be
like the pit master using his fire to heat his home. The heat needs
to be directed consistently and effectively to its target, so do the
gifts God has given to each of us.
I have learned a few things in
thirty-one years of marriage. One of them is that the smoke alarm is
not the best dinner bell; it is not the best indicator that dinner is
ready. We know that because we have employed it, unwittingly, in that
fashion.
Use well what God has given
you - remember each
of has been given a gift of grace, a capacity for service
– use it with the power and love and self-discipline with which it has
been given. Maintain the character of the flame in all that you do.
So there you have it – three
steps for you to use well what you have been given:
1)
Start with the best ingredients
2)
Keep the fire going
3)
Maintain the character of the flame
Of course, the supreme example of
this is not the best barbecue in Texas, but the simplest of meals
found on this Table. It is just a broken off piece of bread and a few
drops of juice, but as elements of the grace of God they are the best
ingredients, the gift For: You
From: God, and
they convey to us the spirit of power (able to do all that we need for
them to do), love (embracing us with God’s kind of love), and
self-discipline (directed right where they need to be applied). This
is God’s gift for you and here there is something
for everyone. Amen.
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