Graham pressed on with his fascinating and insightful series on 2 Timothy this morning.

2 Timothy 1:15-2:13 [ 38:39 ] Play in Popup | Download

2 Timothy 1:15 – 2:13

1) Real treasure is other people
Those that run and those that stay. Some stayed, some deserted him. This dying man is evaluating treasure, and it is not silver or gold but people. It is people that matter to a dying person, not things.

Graham Norton held an old woman’s hand.

On 18 Nov 2007, I was reviewing the Sunday papers on Julia Booth’s show on BBC Radio York. I arrived to a pile of papers and colour supplements and had to select things to mention. That morning one of the things that caught my eye was a feature in the Observer supplement about Graham Norton. According to my wife and the family tree research some of her side of the family have been doing, he is related to us (or us to him).

In that article I discovered something I never knew about him. Graham was stabbed in the chest during a mugging in 1989. His attacker left him to die in the street. In the article he described the old couple who came to his aid, and the elderly lady wearing her dressing-gown.

‘It was interesting because when you’re losing blood it really is your life force going out of you. And what’s nice about it is that it’s only a little bit panicky and then you’re just really tired.’ He remembers an elderly couple came to help him. ‘The old lady was there in her dressing gown, God love her, with someone bleeding on her doorstep, and instinctively I asked to hold her hand – which I think is a kind of human thing, where you don’t want to die alone.’ Graham Norton quoted from Observer 18/11/07

Thinking he was about to die, he asked the old lady to hold his hand as he didn’t want to die alone.

I have not heard of anyone, facing their looming death to ask for their new or finest possessions to be brought in. “Please bring my new flat-screen TV near to me that I may have my hand upon it as I die!” No, we want people near us, preferably our treasured family and friends, those important to us. In Graham Norton’s case even an unlikely stranger was better than any of his possessions or material riches.

2) Real treasure is character
We can not take with us our best toys and things, but we can take our character with us beyond the grave, what we are and what we have become.

Paul appraises their character and encourages Timothy to be a person of character in Chap 2:1-2 who will be able to pass on those values to others who will be able to pass them on to others. I must experience for myself the good things of God or I am only passing on hearsay.

Meat or milk? See Hebrews 5:11-14

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

How to experience? Give time to the ancient devotional practices of prayer and bible reading. There are no short-cuts, no instant snacks, no microwavable manna.

3) Real treasure may take effort to acquire
Chap 2:1ff
True wealth, the sort we can take with us after the end of this life, has to be worked for.

This scripture tells me what I can be. However it also gives me a glimpse of how I can be left behind if I am not vigilant. That is a constant message of scripture, all I can be or all I can fail to be.