NOTE: Dr. Long delivered this address at YTI’s 2025 commencement ceremony earlier this month.
In his last writings, Paul encourages his trusted friend and young protégé, Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth!” (2 Tim. 2:15, NIV).
In this nugget of advice we find four elements of a life that contributes.
1. “Do your best…” — Have a priority focus.
Another word used here is “diligence.”
This is the kind of behavior we find in Larry Bird, former Boston Celtic and NBA Hall of Fame member who, at the end of practice, would stay late and shoot hundreds of free-throws and three-pointers. It is a case of “this one thing I do,” not “in these many things I dabble.”
The great basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins, when they won multiple national titles and had an 88-game winning streak, was John Wooden. Yet, Wooden, the winningest coach in his era, never talked about winning but always about doing your best. He understood the power to the call of expanding our capacity.
Theologian Miroslav Volf in The Cost of Ambition warns of the focus on beating or bettering someone else, arguing instead for a focus on doing our best.
We can legitimately have multiple interests, but only a few can be consuming.
2. “To present yourself to God…” — Have a primary audience.
Einstein knew he was the most famous scientist in the world, but what he really cared about was the esteem from other world-level physicists. That was his audience.
We all play to an audience. We should know who that is and whether it is life giving.
Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner who was later a missionary, once said to a friend, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.”
Paul is telling Timothy that the wise choice is God.
3. “As one approved…” — Have a standard you live by.
There is a “well done.” And there is a “poorly done.” If I am doing it poorly on the way to becoming competent, that is good. But if I am doing poorly because I am not respecting my task or myself, or the one who is receiving the results of my efforts, that is bad.
Every culture has rituals to communicate significance. A commencement ceremony is such a ritual. It communicates that a virtuous standard has been met, and such an achievement is worthy of notice and affirmation.
My dad was uneducated. But he took pride in his work, and so he was meticulous. Once, when siding a house, he was forced to work with someone who was perpetually inept. He was too good a man to berate the man to his face, but when he got home, he would regale his family with the frustrations of working with someone who lived by the philosophy that “it was good enough.”
The Bible says that those who excel will stand before kings.
4. “A worker…” — Have a self-image of a person who regularly shows up.
I have a relative who recently joined Thrivent, a wealth management and insurance company. Trying to learn the ropes, he asked a veteran at this kind of work for any helpful advice he might have. The experienced agent said, “Just return your calls.” He went on to suggest that this new agent might be surprised by the business he would generate and the money he would make if he just returned his calls, suggesting how many agents ignore this simple task.
As the business author Patrick Lencioni says, good leaders do the hard things.
Put in the time. As a young man, Winston Churchill aspired to public office. But he noticed, at social functions and dinner parties which he would attend, that he was inexperienced and unable to enter into the kinds of conversations that the movers and shakers of the nation and government would have. He had been a poor student, easily distracted. But he decided that if he wanted a life in government he would have to improve. He set out for himself a robust reading program over the next few years. It was heavyweight stuff: Macaulay’s five-volumes on the history of England. Gibbon’s six-volume work on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. And the twenty-seven volumes of the deliberations of the houses of Parliament. In short, he went to work. No entitlement, no short-cuts, no casual effort.
“Worker” is not some sociological, class, or economic category. It is a way of looking at one’s self. It is Paul declaring, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7, NIV).
As graduates of YTI, it can be said of you, that you developed a focus, you had a primary audience, you worked to a standard, and you showed up regularly to do the work. So we say with the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:23, NIV).