The Great House Lesson 10 begin

All right, lesson 10, we finally made it. How many weeks were we on lesson nine? We ended up last week with question nine through 11. Question nine, we talked about the word nevertheless. So turn to your Bibles in 2 Timothy. And we're gonna be in chapter two. We're gonna cover 20. But in 19, we looked at nevertheless. That word is a hinge word, right? It's the heart of the matter.

So Paul says, hey, all of these things I've told you, don't forget on one side, there were the men who missed the mark and upset the faith of some. And on the other, a foundation that has not ever moved a single inch. And we looked at 1 John 2.19 to get a comparison to this verse. And 1 John says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. They were never a part of us. And so we came to the conclusion that their leaving didn't make them outsiders. It simply revealed their heart. They were never really there.

So, That's something to take to heart, right? That's what we looked at last week. And I think Mike mentioned, you know, pretty plainly, he said, expect it. The enemy doesn't build a church across the street. He comes into yours. And somebody else gave us, I think it was Miles last week that gave us, no, it was Courtney.

He mentioned the word nevertheless, regardless of what they say, stand firm. was something that he mentioned last week. And then question 10, we talked about the firm foundation, stereos. We talked about how that word meant immovable. It took its stand and it's still standing. And we said, well, what is standing? What is that firm foundation? Do you remember? Paul told us earlier, and we have it in other scripture too, what is the firm foundation that the church in Timothy is encouraged to stand on?

It's God's Word. Courtney gave us the example of the Castlewood Canyon Dam. Remember how he talked about how they built that and it never was intentionally built to stand firm for a long period of time because of the sandstone that he talked about. I built his website and so that geeky water stuff that he talks about makes a lot of sense in this illustration.

Your visibility into the foundation is not the same as its stability. So just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not stable. And Mike, you added a bit of a guardrail. None of us has all the truth by ourselves. We need each other to test what we think against the word. Bereans, you know, test these things, search them out.

Question 11, last week we talked about the seal and we talked about that being the owner's mark. Somebody called it a, was it Mike, you said it was a branding cattle, like how you brand cattle. And those two inscriptions on the seal we talked about last week from the previous verse where the Lord knows those who are his. That's what God knows. And the other part of the seal was that everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. And that's what we do about the seal.

He knows us, we abstain from wickedness. So moving on into lesson 10 here. And it's interesting because verse 20 walks us up off the foundation into the house. So here, Paul built the foundation for Timothy and explained it to him. And now he's saying, okay, you've got the foundation. Let's walk into the house. And he shows us what we see when we walk in the door.

So someone read 2 Timothy 2.20. That's where we're gonna be hanging out today. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. There's other verses about vessels and wood and clay and stubble and all kinds of things. We're gonna have to take this a little bit carefully.

Question one, compare verse 19 with verse 20 and decipher. Good word, Mike. Decipher the difference between these two verses. These two verses regards what the subject matter is. So for verses 19 and verse 20 side by side, what is each verse about? Like I said, verse 19 is the foundation. And then verse 20 walks us right up off the foundation and into the house that was built on it. So verse 19 is what God knows.

We talked about that. The Lord knows those who are his. Verse 20 is what you see when you walk in the door. What do you see? Verse 20, you see gold. you see silver, you see wood, you see clay, some for honor, some for dishonor. From the notes, Mike, that you sent me, Paul has been speaking of the true church, the mystical body of Christ made up of believers only. In verse 20, he is referring to the visible organized church on earth made up of saved and unsaved.

Hmm, kind of gets a little confusing, maybe. I find it interesting you would even make that distinction. Why would he make that distinction here? He just talked about those that were his. I know, God says through Paul to Timothy, I know who are mine. And now he's talking about this collection of people and he uses, you know, gold, silver, wood, and clay. And why would he make this distinction here? Well, the word, okie, or okie, that's the word for house, now in a large house. So we need to look at that word. What does that word mean? Well, we'll start to figure out this distinction that Mike mentioned here. The word house means household. It's the building and everyone and everything in it.

Verse 19 used a different word, thimalos, and that was for foundation. So when you read the word house here, read the part you can see. So you can't see the foundation per se, but you can see the house. And in the house, Paul explains what you see when you walk in the house, the part you can see. So Vincent says, As foundation, that indicates the inward essential character of the church. Orchia is the house and it exhibits its visible outward aspect. So he's talking about something that's now visible for Timothy to see.

The foundation is the character, the house is what you see, and it's made up of a lot of things here that Paul talks about. You got other thoughts? Yeah, I think Christians just naturally assume that if somebody walks in the front door of the church, sits down and goes through the process, they're probably a Christian. What Paul is saying, not everyone that comes in the door is a vessel of honor.

We're going to get to that. The foundation is God's word, correct? So Paul calls the church the pillar and support of the truth, and he says that in 1 Timothy 3.15. The pillar and support of the truth. The word is what the church stands on. and the church God built on it is the one that he says he knows. He knows those that belong to him that were built on the foundation of his word.

So that's the difference. Verse 19 is the church as God sees it. Every one of them is his. Verse 20 is the church as we see it. That's the distinction here. 19 is how God sees it, built on his word. He knows who they are. Verse 20 is how Timothy saw it, how Paul saw it, how you see it. And it's mixed. It's mixed up. Which is kind of the first inscription in 2 Timothy here that really matters because the Lord knows those who are his. From the pew, we can't tell. We don't know. Not the heart.

And so we've got this vessel of dishonor that Mike talked about, and it's in the verse. And the vessels of dishonor aren't a mystery in this chapter. We just spent three weeks on them. What are the vessels of dishonor? Well, go back to verse 16. Look at that. What's in verse 16? Empty chatter. And then what about verse 17? Gain green. Verse 18 names it all.

So the question number one in lesson 10, compare verse 19 with verse 20 and decipher the difference between these two verses in regards to what the subject matter is. What's the subject matter? It's what God sees and what we see in the church. You catching that? Why does he make this distinction at this particular point in time?

Question two. Is it a good thing that both characters are present in the house of God? Now, what's your first gut reaction with that question? Is it a good thing that both kinds are in the house? Vessels of honor, vessels of dishonor. We're gonna talk about the gold and silver and all of this in a minute, but is it a good thing? Hang on to that one.

So 2 Timothy 2.20, now in a large house.

Let's deal with the word large. Megale. That means mega, that's where we get our word mega. It's a big house, huge. The kind with a whole staff and every kind of dish and pot and kitchen utensil, everything. He's gonna actually use words that have very much to do with all the things that are in a house. But he says it's large. So when you read large, you picture not like a little cottage of a house. You picture an estate, a large estate with many, and it's mixed. And Paul's giving Timothy a truth about what that large estate, that large house is made up of.

And it's not different for us either. Vincent says, but the church embraces a variety of characters. Unrighteous men still into it. So in a great household establishment, there are some vessels fit for only base uses. The mixed character of the church points to its greatness. It's big, it's megala. So that's a little surprising maybe. When we think about the church, we don't think about it being filled with a mixed variety, but is it? It is. And the mix is a sign of how big the house is. That's what Paul is trying to tell Timothy. you think about like a little cabin, you've got a few dishes, right?

But in a state it has gold and it's for the banquet and you have clay for, you know, certain uses, but definitely not for the most admirable parts of hosting guests and so forth. And he gets into these different types of materials in this verse. And I think it's really honest. Paul's not pretending that the visible church is pure. I'm gonna let you hang on to that one for a second. Paul's not pretending that the visible church that we see, it doesn't mean just Holly Hills, don't think Holly Hills, think the church, the global church. Paul's not pretending the visible church is pure.

He named two men inside it last week, who were they? Amaneus and Philetus. So a house this size is going to have both. They're gonna have the Felitas. They're gonna have the Timothys. They're gonna have both. But here's the really interesting point. Notice what Paul doesn't tell Timothy to do. He doesn't tell him to go through the house and start sorting out everybody. You're over there and you're over there. Whose job does that belong to?

It's the Lord, because He knows who are His. So what does that mean to you? I'm gonna talk about later, up front, about the same issue in terms of Colossians chapter 2, verse 20. Colossians 2.20. It addresses the same issue. The line of demarcation is really, have you died with Christ or haven't you?

In other words, is your perspective What Paul has taught about the identification truths, is that true of you? Because if it isn't true of you, you're just religious. You guys agree? And you're worldly religious, you're not spiritually resting in Christ. Well, isn't it interesting that here Paul is telling Timothy about the mixture of those in the church, and those in the previous verses were their focus was on miscommunicating the resurrection.

Is the resurrection an identification truth? Is it also a physical reality? It is. And they mucked it up, they messed it up, and they confused it. So the question coming back to, and to piggyback off of what Mike said, is how do you know if you are one of those that God knows in this church? Or are you like Hymenaeus and Philetus and confusing and leading many astray?

Well, Colossians 2.20 is another demarcation of that very same thing, right?

Here, Paul is, Paul is challenging Timothy to the job of thinking about, especially in verse 21 that we're about to get to, what kind of vessel he's going to be. What kind of vessel are you going to be? And what marks that type of vessel? Now, question three brings us to a conversation around this very thing. Describe the ways the two vessels vary. So read it through, and I'll read you Macaulay's commentary here. The vessels found in a house varied in two ways. First, they differed in the material from which each was made. Second, they differed in purpose for which each was used.

The same expressions are found in Romans 9.21.

We're gonna get to that in a moment. So you've got, they differed in material, of which they were made, and they differed in purpose. So material and purpose, keep that in your mind. So Paul's telling Timothy, there's a different material and a different purpose inside this mixed house of the church. And I want you to understand this, Timothy. There's two different lines running through this verse. What it's made of, and that's gold, silver, wood, clay.

And then what it's used for, honor or dishonor. And I don't, I got a little confused here when I first started grappling with this, but here's the thing to catch. Those two lines don't line up with the way we would expect. Paul could have said gold for honor. He could have said clay for dishonor. That's the kind of comparison that we would make, but he didn't.

Verse 21 is about what a vessel gets used for, not what it's made of. And I thought that was really interesting. He's got gold and clay. and honor and dishonor, and it's not a matter of what it's made out of, but what it's used for. Is it used for honor or dishonor?

In Romans 9.21, I said we'd get back to it, it uses the same picture.

Romans 9.21 says, or does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump, it's the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? Same lump. of clay, different uses.

So it's not a matter of what it's made out of, it's a matter of how it's used. Any thoughts? So answer that question. Question three, describe the ways the two vessels vary. Well, some are made of clay. Some are made of gold. Some that are gold can be honorable or dishonorable. Some made of clay can be honorable or dishonorable.

Now, I think that speaks to the uses, right? How God intends to use each of us uniquely within the body. And some of us are made of gold, some of us are made of clay. I don't think that's the matter of us figuring out what we're made out of in this metaphor or this analogy of how God's communicating this. It's a matter of, I designed you this way.

You're either used for honor on the foundation of my word or you're used for dishonor and you're leading those astray. Paul tells Timothy, don't just take someone at the material level. Take them for the purpose that I made them to be. Now, if they misuse that purpose, they're dishonorable. If they stand on my word, I know who they are, and they're honorable.

Same lump of clay, different use, Romans 9.21. Thoughts? So you're saying that And I agree with you that you can be a clay vessel and still be honorable because you're doing what the Lord has called you to do. Doing what the Lord called you to do on the foundation of his word. Yeah. And then you can be a vessel of gold, let's say, because you went to seminary and got educated. Yeah. Got a bunch of really cool vestments.

Cut one of those collars, and you show up, but what you do is not honorable. Because it's not on the foundation of God's Word. Would you usually be judgmental? Does that fall into this? I've never encountered a judgmental Christian. Could you explain what that means? Well, you could use the word cliquish there because a lot of churches, you know, if you haven't, I've told this story a thousand times, the first church I ever went to, the pastor's hobby was to restore borg wards. What?

Borg ward, which is a German made car, a little compact car. Okay, restore cars that were German, called what? Borg ward. Borg ward. And what's interesting, I noticed in the church, as a young Christian, you notice weird things like that, that the board of elders all began to buy board wards. And that was the symbol of the in-group. You were also working to restore a rare German compact car called a board ward. And I thought, boy, if that's what the church is about, I'm not interested in, you know. But you find in every... It'd be like us buying a bunch of jeeps. Jeeps. Yeah, we're going to use Courtney and Nick as an example of those who are basically... Pickup trucks. Hey. Well, I don't have a Borg ward. You know, that shows up in some teaching of teachers like R.B. Thain. Oh, that's great. And in the following, he gathered and It was amazing to see people just flock to that teaching.

Yeah, I'm trying to sort this out based on what the Lord said here through Paul in 2 Timothy. We're looking for When we think about this, it's not necessarily just about being a part of the cliquish group. It's about having an understanding of the foundation and agreeing on that, right? And so any clique that exists within this mixed group of the body would take God's word and expound upon it in a certain way that would lead many astray. That's what was happening in, in Timothy's scenario. So the way that we look at it today is when a teacher, when a very, you know, judgmental nature character comes into the church and starts to grab onto a thing, and that thing is related to the church, it could be politics, It could be technology. It could be sports. I mean, it could be one of any number of things, but it leads off the foundation and it starts to build. It builds from it, but it leads off of it. Right?

And God says that or Paul tells Timothy that some of those things lead to a dishonorable use. So question four, define the following Greek terms, vessels, earth, honor, and dishonor. We need to get into these words because this will help us understand the character of those that were leading some away and that Paul was warning Timothy to, not only, Paul wasn't just warning Timothy, he was also encouraging and challenging Timothy to understand what kind of vessel he was.

So not only gold and silver vessels, so that word, skaios, and Mike notes this that, in the notes that he gave me, this word vessels is any apparatus, equipment, or furniture, household utensils, domestic gear, anything in the house that gets used. So when you read this word vessels, read the things the household works with. It's the things the household runs with. So, not only gold and silver vessels, and vessels are the things that the household works with. And then we have astrakhanos, which is earthenware, vessels of wood and earthenware.

So King James has that of the earth, of earth. New King James has it as clay. And Mike called it baked clay. So a plain, plain fired pot, cheap, common, breakable. So when you think of that word or read that word earthenware, you think clay pot. So you've got the things, the vessels that the household works with. And then Paul talks about Timothy, clay pot. So hold on to that word, because you've actually seen this before.

In 2 Corinthians 4, 7, we read that, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. Those are the same two words that Paul mentions to Timothy here. The skaios, I can't say that word, but that's the vessels and the earthenware, astrakhanos. Same two words in 2 Corinthians 4, 7.

In fact, you could probably write that in your Bible next to this verse because it goes back. So the clay pot is not the problem. Clay is what we already are. That's 2 Corinthians 4, 7. And God puts the treasure in it on purpose. So everyone can see the power is whose? God's, right? What does that do for us in verse 21? Does somebody become gold? Do you go from being earthen to gold? a common, cheap, breakable clay, baked clay vessel, household usage, and somehow turn into the gold here?

No, that is not Paul's point to Timothy at all. The vessel doesn't change its properties. Nobody becomes gold. The question is never what you're made of, it's what you're being used for. That's the point. And I think 2 Corinthians 4, 7 sheds a lot of light here, no pun intended, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. It's not what you're made of, Timothy.

It's what you're used for. So we've identified the word vessel, the things that the household works with. We've identified the word earthenware, And we said, baked clay. What about this word honor? And I'll read the verse again. Now in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. What about honor? Does your, if you're reading from anything other than the NESB, does it use a different word? I think most of them say honor. The ESV says honorable use, and I think that's helpful, actually. Honorable use.

So could you say it's what's in the vessel? Could you? What do you guys think? Do you think, which thought just hit me, We naturally look at vessels of gold and silver to be somehow superior from the world standpoint. And some vessels that are clay and wood aren't quite as honorable because of what they're made of. The issue is not the vessel. It's what the vessel contains. to Wayne's point. It's absolutely what the vessel contains and you being used of it. So just because it's contained doesn't mean it's being used. I think that's where you get into reckoning, right?

Who you are. We walk by faith. So the way that you might think of it is like, you might have a guy at the top, you know, top of his game. or gal, whatever the case, whatever the scenario, someone at the top of their game, and they're sharing God's word, and they're building a great following. And then you have someone like my great-aunt Mary, who is just over there playing the organ and praying for every single person in that church every day. Some use for honor, some use for dishonor. Now, just because you have a great following doesn't mean that you're dishonorable. How do we determine what is honorable and dishonorable? It has to do with the foundation of God's word. So we cannot look at the material of the vessel and understand these things. We can only look at how the vessel uses it, what's been given to them.

I would say that John 15 comes in here, the vine, the branches, and the fruit. The vine, all the life is in the vine. The vessel is the branch. And the fruit hangs on the vessel. But the life comes from the vine. And it goes on to say, you can do nothing without me. Yeah. And so it doesn't matter what the vessel is, it matters the life coming from the vine through the vessel to produce the fruit.

Yeah, that word honor, a valuing by which the price is fixed, an estimation of the value of a thing. If you thought a board was worth $10,000, then you'd pay $10,000. A valuing by which the price is fixed, an estimation of the value of a thing. Now who's giving value? Is it Paul, is it Timothy? The Lord gives the value. And so reverence, deference, it's a price word. So when you read honor, read valued for what it is by God. I think I did a great job teaching this lesson this morning. What value is that to God? None. What is the value? Is His word the firm foundation of what you're being taught?

Or am I just getting fun and making you laugh and you guys walk away feeling with your ears are all tingled and you're good to go. That wouldn't matter. You could come up and tell me at the end of the class, hey, that was great. I could say, was it honorable to God in his word? Or I could say, yeah, that was awesome. I worked really hard on that. I'm glad you liked it.

The word honor, read it, valued for what it is. Then we get to that word dishonor, and it just adds, teme is the word honor, ateme is the word for dishonor, it just adds the A, the not. So the same word with an A on the front, just flipped. Disgrace, contempt. So when you read dishonor, there's no value placed on it.

It's really weird to think about, oh, I went and talked to my neighbor. I told them about God, but then I started talking about all the cool things that we could start doing and hanging out, and I turned it into a social interaction, and I leave God's Word, and all of a sudden we move on to other things, and I'm encouraging you, and I'm building you up, but I left God's Word, and God's Word was maybe only a portion of it.

And I feel very used of God in that relationship. But have I stayed on the firm foundation of God's Word and told them the truth, or have I just built them up? And they know I'm a believer, but... I didn't honor God moving forward because I got off onto a lot of other topics that really encouraged them in different ways that were not based on the Word of God.

It doesn't mean you can't be friends. It doesn't mean, but I look back on that and I think, well, was I being, I felt really good about it. I mean, he likes me and I like him and we're hanging out, but did I leave the foundation of God's Word? all of a sudden now I'm dishonoring God in that relationship rather than honoring Him.

There's no value. Now, don't read me wrong. There's a place for walking alongside people. But certainly when somebody, it's like, oh, they know I'm a Christian, check. Now everything's out the gate. It's done. Now I can move on and we can just start to be buddies. and we'll talk sports all day and every day and we'll never talk about the Lord again. Well, what is he using me for at that point?

That's just a personal perspective on it. I think- That's a really good one, I think, because a lot of times you get in those environments and you give them God's word, But then you try to persuade them that God's word is valuable because of your own experience. So now you've jumped off of the source of the life into your life. Yeah. So easy to do. It is.

And I think that it leads to what Paul was warning Timothy about, and that the church is made up of these. that are honorable and dishonorable, and there's value, and there's honor and dishonor, and you can get caught up in that really easily, Timothy. So you have the word time and atime. They're a matched pair in this verse, valued and not valued. And we saw that same kind of move that Paul made back in verse 16.

Somebody read verse 16, 2 Timothy 2.16. And we'll stop there. That's where the honor and dishonor really set for Paul and Timothy in this chapter. Let's pray.

Father, how we thank You that despite our own characteristics and our own personalities, we can be brought back to the firm foundation of Your Word. And just as Paul was asking Timothy, we can also ask ourselves about where we sit with regards to being used.

And we know that it's by grace that we contain your life. And so, Lord, we're just very thankful that we can not only have that life, but that you would manifest it through us. And that's your purpose for us, that you're conforming us to the image of your son. And that these things matter as to how we conduct ourselves and how you see the church and how we see it. I pray that we would remain faithful to your word and doing so that we would honor you with it. And it's in your name we pray, amen.