Several weeks ago I was sitting by myself at a coffee house, and a phrase from the Bible came to my mind, and it connected with something deep within me.  I had the sense that this is really a profound truth.  That phrase was “be ready, in season and out of season”.  It was as if God was saying to me, “Reid, this is how life works in the kingdom”; this is how any thing you’ve done has gotten done and this is how it will be going forward.  You must persist in the things I have called you to, in season and out of season.

Paul told Timothy, “Preach the word, always be ready, in season and out of season”.  The ISV says “Proclaim the message, be ready to do this whether or not the time is convenient”.  Timothy needed to hear that.  And WE need to hear that!  An “in season person” does the things when they are convenient; an “out of season person” also does them when they are are difficult or challenging. You can be an “in season” person;  or you can be an “in season AND out of season person”.  In the natural we all tend to be “in season” people.  But God is calling you to be an “in season and out of season” kind of person.

You are called to keep on doing the work of the kingdom, when it’s easy and when it’s hard, when you feel like it and when you don’t.  You are called to respond to the leading of the Spirit, when it’s convenient and when it is VERY inconvenient; you are called to keep pressing on in the Lord, when people are cheering you on and when people  are snickering at you.  You are called to hold fast to the Word of God when people accept the message and when the whole world rejects it.

Paul made sure Timothy knew this message was extremely important!  “I charge you, in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and (in view of) his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word, be ready in season and out of season”.  Paul told Timothy, in the most powerful manner possible, to keep at his work, proclaiming God’s word, in all seasons.

I think when Timothy read this message, it stirred something deep within him!  And I ask you, “Does it not stir something deep within you?  Does not your heart leap within you?”  That is the Holy Spirit.  He is in agreement with this word.  He is stirring you up to be an in season and out of season kind of person.

There are several really important messages for us in this passage of scripture.  We could talk about the essential task of preachers to preach the message of Christ, and I will touch on that.  But the main thing God has laid on my heart to share with you, is this way of living, that Timothy was called to and that we are all called to.  And that is to always be prepared to do the things God has called you to, at all times in all situations, in all the ups and downs of life; always be prepared to speak, live and act for God, at all times in all situations.

This is a way of life that applies to all of us regardless of your individual gifts and calling.  It is a way of life that applies to your faithfulness to your family, to your church family, to the activities and areas of service that God has called you to.

Verse 2 says, “Be ready”.  Other translations say,  “be urgent”, “be persistent”, “keep your sense of urgency”.  The literal meaning is to stand by.  That means you are present, available, and ready to go. 

A commentator by the name of Dwight Edwards said, “Often times we fall into a sort of "time clock" mentality in regards to serving Christ. For certain periods of the day we are "on the job" for the kingdom, but then at other times we mentally "punch out" for the day. Here we are being commanded to throw away our punch cards and be ready for any and every opportunity afforded us.” 

“In season and out of season” means something like, at all times, in all situations, in the ups and downs, when it’s convenient, when it is not, when it is popular when it is not…. The amplified says, “keep your sense of urgency, whether the opportunity seems favorable or unfavorable, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether welcome or unwelcome”.   This is God’s way we are to approach life.

Oswald Saunders says, “The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. …. In other words, we should “be ready” whether we feel like it or not”.  I think this phrase also applies to outward obstacles and hindrances not just our feelings but I think being constant in spite of the fluctuations of our emotions is a big part of it!  The Spirit is your guide not your feelings.  It is easy to make a god or an idol of your feelings, and really be severely handicapped in serving God, by that.

This command to Timothy, in the natural realm, would be like someone saying to you, “Go for a walk every day, if it’s summer or winter, 100 degrees or zero, sunshine or rain, ice or snow, in season and out of season!”  In the kingdom of God, we are called to that kind of spiritual tenacity, to that kind of dogged steadfastness!  Come what may, we are on our way.

The natural man never thinks of doing anything in God’s kingdom, that is not entirely convenient!  The natural man thinks like this, “If I don’t have anything else going on.  If it feels just right at the moment, if all the circumstances happen to line up, if nothing else comes up, THEN, ABSOLUTELY, I am ready and available!”  God calls us to a whole new frame of mind.

A man named John McQuilkin had served as president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary for 22 years.   Then suddenly he resigned in 1990 to care full time for his wife, Muriel, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease.  He did something few men would do.  Knowing the school needed him 100 percent, and knowing Muriel needed him 100 percent. He chose to step down from his position as president of the college so he could devote full time to being his wife’s caretaker.

When he stepped down from the college, wrote a letter to explain his decision:

“It is clear to me that Muriel needs me now, full-time…My decision was made, in a way, 42 years ago when I promised to care for Muriel ‘in sickness and in health…till death do us part.’ So, as a man of my word, integrity has something to do with it. But so does fairness. She has cared for me fully and sacrificially all these years; if I cared for her for the next 40 years I would not be out of her debt.

“I love Muriel. She is a delight to me—her childlike dependence and confidence in me, her warm love, occasional flashes of that wit I used to relish so, her happy spirit and tough resilience in the face of her continual distressing frustration. I don’t have to care for her. I get to! It is a high honor to care for so wonderful a person.”

He understood that marriage is a vow to love in season and out of season. And he took those vows seriously, so when it came time to love out of season, when love was costly, he had already made that decision so he said, the didn’t really struggle with it, because he knew the path he had already chosen to take.

That is the way we approach all that God has put before us.

Tomorrow will be the start of a new year, 2018.  It will be a new year, a new season of life.  None of us know exactly what the year will hold for us.  Within this next year, there may be blessing and trial, joy and tears, adversity and prosperity; you may be humbled or promoted;  you may be liked by some, unliked by others. There may be times this year that seem incredibly blessed, even easy, and their may be times that seem harder than you can imagine.  Life can feel like a roller coaster at times! 

Paul knew very well this changing nature of life and that’s why he called Timothy to be faithful in all situations, at all times.  It is a call to us, too!  God is saying to us, “There are many seasons in life, but there is never a season to not be steadfast, faithful and true’. 

The main thing that Timothy was to do in season and out of season was to preach the word, proclaim the message, to teach, correct and encourage with great patience. 

Most of us here are not preachers of the word in the sense that Timothy or Paul were.  But we all preach a message, in the ideas we express, in the things we say, in our conversations at home, around the table, in the things you tell your kids, in the things you say in the church, at small groups, in informal and sometimes formal settings.  In a sense we all are always preaching a message. 

And that message you are sending out to others, is to be the word of God.  NOT that you are always sharing a Bible verse.  But you are to say things that line up with God’s word!  Yes have your own thoughts on whether you want mushrooms or pepperoni on you pizza, but on matters of life and salvation and morality, where God has ALREADY expressed his thoughts.  You are to speak for God.

The things that you say about life, are to be what the Bible says about life.  Your ideas and attitudes and philosophies are to be grounded in the Word, not just in something you’ve always heard, or sounds positive.  We are speakers of truth, of the gospel message.  We have a message to proclaim for God and we are to be faithful in doing that, in season and out of season.

When Paul wrote this, he sensed that he would die soon, and Timothy was to carry on the message.  Verse 6 “the time of my departure has come”.  He knew about all the pressures of life and the hardship of ministry.  He knew the 1000s of ways people get off track.  He knew very well about all the strange teachings that people fall into.  Paul knew people would depart from the pure message of the gospel of Christ, and that people would become intrigued with other messages.  (He called them foolish controversies and speculations, spiritual myths, meaningless talk about the law, wanting to become teachers of the law, etc.)

So he said, “Regardless of the response, regardless of whether it is the popular thing to do, or not, regardless of whether you feel like it or not, regardless of whether it is easy or not, go on preaching the pure and true word of Christ.  Just stay at it!”

Paul himself was an example of keeping on in season and out of season.  Verse 7 He said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”.  Life is a fight. Carmen has a song that says, “The road has been a long one; it’s always been a fight”.  That’s so true!   You fight through all kinds of things, “season and out of season”.

Paul said he finished the race.  Life is a race to be completed. And you keep running through all kinds of obstacles. 

Paul said he had kept the faith.  There is a faith to be held on to, at all times in all situations.  When people are being sidetracked into various teachings, and following false teachers, when the devil tempts to wallow in unbelief, you hold firm to the faith.  Paul had done that!  Now he wants Timothy to follow in the same steadfastness, in the same faithfulness. 

What does it mean for you to be faithful in season and out of season?

*You carry out the things God has given you to do, faithfully and “with perseverance”, or “with long-suffering”.  Paul said, “Teach, rebuke and encourage, with great patience”.  Keep at it.

One of the most comforting qualities of God is that he is steadfast.  For example, God is steadfast in his love, meaning he does not vacillate in how much he loves you.  He is never fickle or changing his mind.  If God is for you, he is for you, today and tomorrow and forever!  There are people who you just never know what you are going to get from them!  They could be warm and friendly one day and then cold and distant another day.  But God is like a rock.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  His mercies never come to an end.  They are new every morning.  Great is your faithfulness, O God.

God is building this same quality of steadfastness in your life.  God wants you to be stable, day after day, not pushed off course by changing circumstances, in changing feelings, in changing situations.  After he proclaimed the certainty or our resurrection with Christ, he said, “Therefore by beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”.

This verse in the NIV says, “Stand firm.  Let nothing move you”.

There are ups and downs and bumps and bruises, and changing feelings that work upon our soul.  There will be trials yet to face, and you may be tempted to give up, to pull back, to settle for something less, or easier.  So …

What helps us to keep going in season and out of season?

*The consciousness that God loves and sees us, AND that continuing on faithfully, in all seasons of life, will someday be highly rewarded.  Galatians 6 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”.  

Paul reminded Timothy that he gave him this charge in the presence of God, and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom”.   We live in the presence of God, and Christ will soon appear and his kingdom is coming in fullness, and in presence of God and in the kingdom of God, faithfulness matters and will be rewarded!

He told the Corinthians to be steadfast “because you know that you labor in the Lord is not in vain”.  Rewards for faithfulness to the work of the Lord will come at the resurrection.  There is a day coming when there will be great reward for faithfulness, for staying at the things God has called you to, in season and out of season.  When you are tempted to grow weary, or quit, or turn back, remember – God sees your faithfulness and he highly values it! 

*Trust in the Lord. (keeps you going strong in all seasons of life).  Jeremiah 17:7 “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out it roots by a stream. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit”. 

It is possible for you, in any season, to keep on blessing others, to be giving out, encouraging the body, to faithfully be speaking God’s truth.   “They never fail to bear fruit!”.  That comes from trust!  It comes from trusting in the Lord with all of your heart.  You trust him totally, without reservation.  You jump into his arms!  You trust him like a child.  You trust him when you have boundless energy and health, or if you are diagnosed with cancer, when you are promoted or if you lose a job, when you are blessed with a healthy new born baby, or if you lose a child.  You trust in him when the pathway seems bright and clear and when it seems dark and confusing. 

Trust is like our life-line to God.  It is like the root of a plant drawing  the water of a stream into that plant so that it grows and blossoms.  Even if there is a lack of rain, that root is still pulling water from the stream. 

*We become in season and out of season people by holding fast to the Word of God.  The word keeps us stable.  People with consistent exposure to the voice of God in the scripture are generally consistent people.

The Bible is God’s written revelation to us that does not change with time or with our emotions or with all the changing ideas around us.  The word is like an anchor to our soul.  It keeps us from being tossed to and fro.

Psalm 1 says the person who delights in God’s word and who meditates on it day and night, “that person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, and whatever they do prospers”. 

*You remain faithful in the seasons of life by developing your relationship with the Holy Spirit.  Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit who generates this faithful quality in our lives.

Communion with the Spirit, this inner connectedness with the Holy Spirit is what enables us to keep on through all the seasons of life!  Nothing can substitute for that. This steadfastness, this faithfulness comes out of your communion with the Spirit.

Jesus said, “He who believes in me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”  By this he meant the Spirit.  We do not live out of our own resources.  When we feel weak, or empty, or challenged, or things seem “out of season” we draw upon the Spirit.  And we find power that we didn’t have in ourselves. 

*You become an “in season and out of season person by choosing that in your heart.  Paul wrote this exhortation to Timothy and he expected Timothy to respond to that, to choose to do that.  

People who are steadfast, immovable, faithful in season and out of season, are NOT people who just happen to have pretty smooth sailing, or who are blessed with stable emotions, and never feel the overwhelming urge to stay home, quit, or give up or withdraw.  They have the same in season and out of season feelings and experiences as everyone else but they have chosen to NOT let the seasons of life determine their faithfulness to God and his call.

As we begin a new year, let us give ourselves to this call.  The word of God calls us to it from the pages of scripture and the Holy Spirit calls us to it from within our hearts.  And he is there to walk this out with us and in us, as we walk in him.