The Great Train Ride

2 Timothy 2:8-15

September 19, 2004

 

1.  Richard and I went for a train ride last Saturday.  It was a “ride” and not a “trip.”   It was a 2-1/2 mile ride—a mile and a quarter one way, and a mile and a quarter back.    The passenger car we rode in was built in 1912.  The only air-conditioning was “armstrong” (old euphemism for opening the windows), and ceiling fans weren’t added until 1920.  In cold weather, heat came from a wood-burning pot-bellied stove in the middle of the car.  The engine was a relatively new diesel; if it had been the original engine, there would have been a coal car behind it to store the chunks of coal that burned to make steam to make the whole thing go.

 

2.  As it was, this train had only those two cars—the engine and the passenger car.  And there were two ways we could ride—frontward and backward.  The seats were an engineering marvel–simply swinging the back from one side of the seat to the other completely changed the direction you sat.  We were in a group of six and wanted to face each other.  So we swung one of the backs the other direction and we had a cozy little arrangement.  I sat with my face toward the engine; Richard sat across from me with his back toward the engine.  Richard could see where we had been; I could see where we were.  The engineer was the only one who could see where we were going.

 

3.  We came to the point where we were to turn around and go back to the station.  But the engineer had checked things out and knew that the curve was too sharp for both engine and passenger car.  So the he applied the brakes, and stopped the train right there in the forest.  Then he uncoupled the engine from the passenger car.  Up until this moment there had been the noise of the people chattering and the noise of the wheels clattering along the track and the noise of the train whistle as the engine forged ahead.  Now there was only silence–just the whistle of the train engine as it chugged away from us.  Now, this was only a fun trip and I knew we were not in any danger of being left, but in a flash I realized how much the people in that car depended on that engine and the engineer who was guiding it.  In a spirit of fun, we all got off and watched for the engine as it rounded the curve, and watched the engineer reconnect to the other end of the passenger car.  All of us got back in our seats for the ride back to the station–all of us, that is, except one couple.  They decided to climb up into the engine; they rode back to the station with a full view of the track in front of us.  They could tell exactly where we were going.  They had the best seat on the train!

 

4.  Our train ride was only last week, and the car we rode in was 100 years old.  Trains did not exist in Bible times.  Neither Jesus nor Paul nor Timothy could have imagined travel by any means other than camel or donkey; maybe they had heard about chariots, but there is no mention of chariots in the Second Testament.  However, there is a sense in which Timothy was on a train riding into his future as a Christian.  This was his journey of faith. 

 

5.  Timothy’s train had several cars (rather than the two cars on our train): There was a car for his Jewish Grandmother Lois–she had a strong faith and was very much a part of his life.  There was another car for his Christian Mother Eunice; and probably a car for his Gentile Father (whose name we do not know).

 

6.  The “coal car” behind the engine on Timothy’s train was filled with “fuel” for his journey of faith.  Paul himself was the “fireman” and each “chunk of coal” was one of Paul’s charges to Timothy that we read in the second chapter of Paul’s second letter to him.  “Be strong” [verses 1 and 2]; “Share in my suffering” [verses 3-7]; “Remember Jesus Christ” [verses 8-13]; and “Remind the people in word and in deed [verses 14 ff].  As Timothy’s Train chugged down the track on his journey of faith, he needed lots of steam to keep his train going up the steep grades and along the wide open spaces; Paul’s advice to him was just the thing.   His was the trip of a lifetime–not a 2-1/2 mile fun run down a short segment of track built for tourists.  For Timothy, his train ride was serious business!

 

7.  Is Timothy the only one to “ride a train” on a faith journey?  Not at all!  In much the same way, we too are on our own Great Train Ride--our own journey of faith.  And, like Timothy, each one of our trains has several cars.  There are cars for the people who have brought us to the place where we are: a car for parents; a car for grandparents; cars for various teachers along the way.  We very likely have a “baggage” car where we store all our unhappy experiences.  But trains are not like cars that can ride on just about any surface.  Trains must have tracks to run on.

 

8.  God has “laid the track” to get us to our destination, but it’s up to us to keep everything in good repair.  If we don’t know what we’re doing, if we don’t know what the track and train are supposed to look like, we can get ourselves into real trouble.   If we owned the train company, we would send out maintenance cars to check the bridges and the railroad ties and the problem spots to make certain the ride would be smooth.  We would check every part of every car to determine if it was strong enough to make the journey.  But we’re not a train company; we’re human beings, so it is up to us to keep our faith in good condition.   We have three choices.

 

9.  We can sit backwards in our passenger car.  If we sit backwards, we can enjoy where we have been.  We can tell ourselves we have all the faith we need; it’s gotten us through everything so far, and it will get us through the future.   We can do that--sitting backwards is one option.  But what about the things that are immediately ahead of us?  Do we know where we are going well enough to see a little ways down the track?  We have a second option.

 

10.  We could decide to sit forward and look toward the direction we’re going.  At least we can see where we are, and a few feet ahead.  However, seeing only a little bit of the track ahead makes it very easy to deceive ourselves into thinking we know what’s further down the track.  We tell ourselves that we are doing what God wants us to do, and obeying God’s instructions to us.  Sitting this way, in my opinion, is preferable to sitting backwards, but there is one more option. 

 

11.  Remember the couple on our ride who climbed up in the engine?  That’s the third option!  We can chose to ride in the engine and actually talk to the engineer and see where we’re going.  On our faith journey, if we were to “ride in the engine” we would constantly refuel our fire with Bible study, testing and retesting what we’ve always believed.  And we would talk with the “owned” and the “engineer” and each other about our faith. 

 

12.  God owns this faith train; there is no doubt about that.  And Jesus is the engineer.  So whatever car we ride in; whether we sit facing the front or the rear of the car, God is there with us, and Jesus is leading the way.  But I believe that the very best place for us to be, as we move into our future, is in the engine.  Where do you want to be on your faith train?