2Timothy lesson 10 continue

We are in lesson 10, and we're studying through verses 20, 21, and I think 22 of 2 Timothy. I'm going to read the verses. But in a great house, There are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay and some of honor and some of dishonor.

Therefore, if anyone cleanse himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work. Last week, we talked about the characteristics of the vessels. I've often thought that One of the great ways to describe believers is that they're vessels, which means they contain stuff. And so if you're a vessel of honor or dishonor, it takes the idea of performance away from me and puts it into my being filled with something. So as a vessel, I look at the beam of judgment the same way, the rewards in the Beeman judgment will be as a vessel being filled with the Lord Jesus. And so it isn't that I get merit badges, it's that I get filled.

And so the one question that we spent some time on last week was vessels of honor and dishonor. Who gets to determine the vessels of dishonor and the vessels of honor. Well, before I go there, we talked about the fact that in the great house, which is the body of Christ, there are vessels of gold and silver. There are also wood and clay. Some are honor and some are dishonor.

And we discovered that a local church can have all of those in their company. vessels of honor, dishonor, clay, and gold. And that God uses them all. He uses them all. In Christ, in the heavenlies, it's only vessels of honor. But in the church on the earth, you can have any and everybody.

So earthen vessels means that we're baked clay, made out of clay. And honor vessels were valued and attitude towards a person or thing commensurate with the value and therefore reverence and deference. Dishonor means just disgrace or contempt. So walking around among believers or those who claim to be believers are these vessels of dishonor. It's not our job to ferret them out and expose them, but they're there. So we'll start today's verse is 21.

Therefore, if anyone cleanse himself from the latter, he will be a vessel of honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work. So great word, therefore. Therefore means everything we've talked about up to this point, go back and take a look at it. Here's the result.

If anyone cleansed himself, now, how many of you guys read The Hungry Heart this morning? Really interesting about this. How do you cleanse yourself? How do you do that? Let's say you say, wow, I'm instructed by 2 Timothy 2.21 to cleanse myself from all dishonor. And I said, OK, I'm going to go do that. How do you do it? Well, you obviously didn't read The Hungry Heart, otherwise you'd know. Anyway, it struck me this morning as I was reading, and I'll read the paragraph to you. I think this is the way it happens.

Paragraph two, walking in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, He, the Spirit, leads up our hearts to where we are in, to where we are in the Lord Jesus. The new man finds delight in Him and nowhere else. The Spirit is the living link between us and the Son in glory. He causes us to gaze upon him and we become changed into the same image from glory to glory. This is true Christianity, the heart drawn off of things here and lovingly occupied with the one who is our Christian life. That's how it's done. the Spirit of God, it's a really cool way to put it. He causes us to gaze, to look at, to behold the Son in glory. See that?

And because of that, we are changed into the same image. And what does that mean? You become a vessel of honor. That make sense? It isn't get ready and do your spiritual push-ups. It's understanding. And when the author here says it causes us to gaze upon him and become changed into the same image from glory to glory, where do you look? in his word. That's exactly right.

I think the last is the best, I think, in that the heart drawn off things here. So it's two different things. Getting off of things here and focusing on him. I think it's kind of Colossians 3. Things above, not things below. I think that's the cleansing part. So I think it's kind of a two-part that the Holy Spirit does. And I think we're obviously active in that process. We're relying upon the Holy Spirit, but we have to also take our eyes off things here and focus on God's Word. And I would say the reason that you do that is because That's exactly right.

Well, you don't have a choice. I was talking last night to a close friend in Los Angeles. He's my age, and we've been buddies for 20, 30 years. And he's a really cool Christian guy. He used to be in John MacArthur's church, but then he woke up one day and said, I better leave this place. He's half Jewish. So he has a real heart for Israel. And so he's going on and on about California and elections and all of this stuff.

And I said, did you ever read Colossians 3.1? He said, what do you mean? I said, well, what does it say? He said, since you'd be risen with Christ, seek those things with our above. I said, the news is better there. than it is on Fox.

I also think in all this time too, Romans 13, who's the one who puts authorities in place? Yes, I think Christians participate in the... He's given us that opportunity now in this age. and our location to be able to vote, and we should. I don't think it's that we just sit back and let God do it. He uses us, but ultimately who wins or loses is His choice. But when you look around, you see He's working. He's actually doing what He's telling us in His Word through the circumstances, through God's Word, through every environment. He works all things together for good. It's pretty simple.

If you think about it, if you're a Christian and you're in a church that never teaches identification truth, then you don't know you are a new man in Christ. You don't know that. So how can you possibly continue by faith in that principle. You can't. That's exactly what you do. You look at verses like this and you say, I got to get this guy to conform and look like a Christian. The problem with that is that you become self-righteous if you're very good at it. So that leads to question five here.

To what degree is the believer, and in this case Timothy, to live a separate life. Because that's what Paul is telling them. Therefore anyone cleanse himself, Timothy, we'll start with him, he will be a vessel of honors sanctified. So to what degree should, well you pick on Timothy.

Now, Timothy has got a problem, because he not only is a believer, but he's also a shepherd. And so he's in a position where the application of this exhortation from Paul is not only for him, but for all the sheep that he's involved with. So I think you find that a shepherd who sees this, he's working in that direction all the time. When I wrote down here, it has a direct application to the obligation of a pastor. to refuse to fellowship in the work of ministry with another pastor who is not one who rightly divides the word of truth. A lot of times, Christian pastors want to get together under the heading of Christian, even though their doctrine's totally different.

I think Paul is telling Timothy, no, you can't do that. You've got to stick with the truth, and you have to walk the walk. Not that I would get ahead, but he adds a lot of qualifiers on this. If anyone cleanses himself, next one, now flee from youthful lust. Right. 23, but refuse foolish and ignorant speculations. 24, the Lord's bond service must not be quarrelsome. These are all the qualifiers on being a vessel of honor. these are excluded. So, you know, he's telling them, be a vessel of honor and sanctify and be useful for the master and prepared for every good work.

And then he goes on to say, avoid these things and you will be useful to the master. Question six is, what's the exhortation here? I want to change the question. to ask, how do you, again, how is this applied? How do you, if I read, not only, therefore if anyone, so I'm one of the anyone's, cleanse myself from the latter, which is what we've discussed in the past.

He will be a vessel of honor, set apart and useful to the master. Okay, I want to be useful to the master, and I want to be set apart, and I want to be prepared for every good work. What do I do? I better go to seminary, right? No. Mike, can you hear me? Hey, JD, how are you? Good.

I was just thinking about going back to verse 16, then 19, then verse 21. Paul has been telling Timothy to turn around and walk, to step away from wickedness, to cleanse yourself from these, and now he's told to flee. So the idea is don't stand where the gangrene is in this verse, right? And it was the fool of speculations and so forth.

But I think you asked a really good question. Sure, a pastor is not to maybe associate with that kind of not having rightly divided the Word of God, but what about for the rest of us? So what does that look like? to turn around and walk, step away, cleanse yourself, flee, and what constitutes having not rightly divided it to the point where you're taking those actions yourself? I think that's why that... Were you on when we were talking about the hungry heart for today? Yeah, the beholding. Well, it was gazing. Yeah. Born to be born.

I really like how, it isn't all Miles Stanford stuff, some of it is Andrew Murray, but he says, as a believer grows and his path becomes more involved, he's taught more and more about the Holy Spirit's ministry, for he needs this doctrine increasingly for his comfort and rest in trial. His faith is not so strong and unwavering as he imagined, and the ardor of his love soon vanishes. The power of sin, which at first he fancied was utterly broken, makes itself felt again." So what the Spirit of God does, I think, with a growing believer, the very first part of the Christian walk is to learn what failure is all about. to learn that I do not have control over this sin nature no matter how hard I try or what tools I use. That I have to learn dependence. And it's okay to learn dependence.

It's really good. I don't need all of these other props to keep me looking and acting like a Christian. It's alright to go to the Lord and say, look, I can't do this. If you don't show up, If what I read and understand about what your spirit's going to do in my life, it's not going to happen, because I can't do it. Well, it takes a spirit of time, I think, in a Christian's life to get them to that position. And it's not really a cry uncle sort of a thing.

It's kind of like, I just can't do this, but God expects me to do it. Lewis Perry Chaffer said that God has called us to live a life that's totally impossible for us to live, yet He expects us to do it. How does He do that? Because of the Spirit of God that's in me, that He's going to teach me through failure to start with, and then through understanding the Word of God and what He has already done, that we can trust Him to produce in our everyday life this resurrected life of Christ.

And that's how it works. It sounds like he's saying to cleanse yourself or get yourself out of the way. Well, that's a pretty good way to look at it. Get yourself out of the way. You can't even do that right because you're always looking for, you know, as soon as you ask the question, well, what can I do? you know, keep your faith on and your hands off. So look at me, I cut myself out of the way. Yeah, yeah, look at me, I cut myself out of the way.

It's great. Well, I think that's kind of where I was going with this, is like, where is that line for us as believers where we step away from the teaching that leads to gangrene, it's bad teaching. So how do I know when that line is? And I think you're pointing to the Spirit's guidance there, and the word sanctified comes up here as well. So how do we set ourselves apart? And you kind of hit on it, we're not the ones setting ourselves apart. We are set apart, but certainly we have to make a decision to walk away at some point. And that's what I'd like to capture in terms of the thought here.

Yeah, notice that it says at the end of verse 21, "...prepared for every good work." You have to be prepared. for what he's called you to do, which means you've got to be prepared to understand that the Spirit of God is actually doing the work through you. And it doesn't make you arrogant about it, it makes you humble that the Spirit of God would actually do that. When you begin to realize that your life influenced somebody else's life, Christian life, in a positive way, and you know that your skill and your intelligence had nothing to do with it. Now you may have the right verses, You may have the right understanding, but the actual implementation of that life is the Holy Spirit's job. But you're the vessel, vessel through which the Spirit works.

And so he will make you, he will make you a vessel of honor. How does he do it? He sets you apart for his own good, for your own good. And he makes you useful so that the master can use you. See that? You're being prepared. We're all being prepared today for something that God has in mind that he's going to do through us at some future time. The prep work goes on now, and you don't know when that is.

You know, that's why Courtney referred to Colossians 3.1.

What do I do now? I set my affections, my mind on things above, and not on things of the earth. And you know, here's the real simple answer. Why do I do that? Because I'm dead to the things of the rudimentary principles of the world, and I'm alive to God in the heavenlies. Boy, what a privilege that is. Oh, I apologize for stepping in on you there. It is a privilege, and I see this in my kids a lot. And so I'm kind of looking at it through their eyes as well.

We may be very well prepared and studied, but sometimes we don't know the answer. We just know that what's being said or hearing doesn't line up, but we don't know where that is. And kids will come and say, this doesn't seem to line up, and I don't know why. I often say, well, I think that that's the Spirit Himself encouraging you to go behold what is true, because you know it's not lining up, but you don't know exactly how to defend it, or how, maybe you're not to defend, maybe you are to step away or flee or cleanse yourself, but the Spirit places upon our heart when the rightly dividing starts to not divide, and takes them into some kind of performance-based perspective and so I just, I see it as, it goes back to that beholding and gazing, like where were your eyes when the spirit really started tugging on your heart that, hey, this doesn't line up.

And I need to step away and spend that time in the Word with him. Otherwise, I'll start to, you know, like an amoeba, I'll just start to accumulate these thoughts and these ways of speaking that I think Timothy was facing in his own church. And so, yeah, it's very practical, but it's also very Spirit-led. Has to be.

The last paragraph in The Hungry Heart this morning says, in other words, the Father leads him into the valley lest he should make an idol of his faith. Ever been anybody whose faith was their idol? And wellspring of a cistern, he's taught something of himself. Who does not know of the second stage of the Christian life, at first so painful and so humiliating, and filling the soul with perplexity? That's what you're describing, JD.

It is thus that we learn that the spirit who has renewed our spirit must also sustain our new life. that we depend entirely on divine grace and strength, not merely to bring us into, bring us to the Lord Jesus, but to keep us abiding in Him where He is.

I know I'm to abide in Christ in the heavenlies. Boy, you talk about dependence. Because, I mean, if your mind works like my mind, you know, you start praying and the next thing you know you're thinking about the Broncos. where you're thinking about, oh, my friend Joe, how can I help him get through this situation? Or I've got to get up tomorrow morning and I got to do, wait a minute, hold it. I want to be with the Lord here.

When I think of this too, it's like how enticing the world is to the flesh. All the time. And I think of what you've said many times, there's not a sin that you did that you didn't want to do. And it's like, why is that? And I think as you grow, You know, in the Lord, I think, and the Lord shows you that more and more. It's less and less of an enticement. But it's the time and the time with the Lord and, you know, just, again, taking your eyes off the world and the enticements of the world and slowly transforming to what you see is seek things above. And you know what that is? That word that describes that, he woos you. You know, it's like a lover. He woos you. Because that's what the world's doing.

It's going, hey, pay attention to me. You're not going to be able to survive if you don't. Wait a minute, out of my arm. I'm being wooed now, goodbye. So that's where the dependence is. Again, if you're like me, you're praying and all of a sudden this new thought comes in your mind. And it's like, hold it. Because I'm in Christ, I can reckon that out. I can say, that's not part of me. I'm using God's Word. You're gone. I'm back. And it goes. It goes. I don't have to fight with it. Because I understand what's happening. I think that's a really good way of putting the reckon out. Because that's literally what it is.

You're hanging on a promise of God that, in this case, it didn't line up with what Timothy was teaching, what Paul was teaching. And sometimes that takes time. It doesn't happen instantly. But that's certainly the process. Your part is to flee, to walk away.

And how do you do that? Well, it's reckoning on what is true. and not on those things that you're hearing. I can reckon on what I know to be true because I was taught in God's Word. And that's my reliance. That's where I go. I don't go on human wisdom or philosophy or spiritism. I go to God's Word and it says I've been crucified, separated from that, and I can reckon on that. And I'm alive to God.

Verse 22, now flee from useful, my Bible says lust, I would just use the word desires, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. The youthful desires or lusts are well displayed in Romans chapter seven.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law, for I would not have known about lusting, coveting, desiring, whatever word you want to put in there. If the law had said, you shall not desire, or you shall not lust, and this isn't sexual lust, this is anything.

I desire a red Ford Mustang. Or I desire to be able to shoot 72 on the golf course. or I desire, I don't care what it is. The desire, so the basic fundamental aspect of the sin nature is to desire. That's what it does. You just described it, Courtney. So here comes the law of God and it says, oh, you know that thing you do, the desiring thing? Well, that's illegal. But as soon as it says to you that's against the law to do that, what happens? It's like somebody throws gasoline on a campfire. Kaboom. Every kind of imaginable desire springs up. So, this word desire is a craving or a passionate desire. It can be good or evil. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Is there? I think it's funny. From day one, with a child or any of us, the sin nature is evident. Don't touch wet paint. What is your first inclination? Absolutely. The very first thing is, I want to touch it. The desire, the law says, and the first thing I want to do is against that. I just, yeah, don't touch it. If I just barely touch it. But that to me always demonstrates the sin nature right away. The first inclination is do against what the law or whatever the thing is.

You know where I saw the sin nature last night? Trick or treaters. Here they come, this high, all dressed up. They got their eyeballs on that thing of candy like they're not leaving without it. They are desiring a piece of chocolate. And the ones that are too young, they're all about introducing themselves to you. But when they get a little older and from then up, they're after the candy.

So, if you look at Galatians 5.17, it says, for the flesh sets its desire, desire against the spirit. So the flesh has a really strong desire. What is it? It's against the Holy Spirit. And the spirit against the flesh. Oh, now we got a game. You know, the Broncos and the Chiefs.

For these are in opposition to one another so that you cannot do the things that you would please to do. But if you rely on, as Paul is telling Timothy here, the desires change. That's what happens when the Spirit of God begins to reveal Christ to the believer. What happens? Your desires change.

I want to be like Him. Understand? Does that make sense? That the job is not to give you this set of rules. The job is to change your desire from the flesh to the Spirit. And that's what the Spirit's after. You brought this up before in that passage. Where are we in that? Yeah.

It's flesh versus spirit. But the new man is, you know, I try and digest that, what that means. I'm sitting on the sideline watching the fight go. We have to be active in that, in that kind of, I think, almost like the diagram that Hal used to have with the switch. Yeah. You know, the flesh and the spirit are battling, but we're kind of the gatekeeper of that. You know, almost. We're involved in that. It's not explicit in here. It's really the flesh against the spirit. But we're the ones, like I said, opening the gate or opening the switch and relying upon the spirit or falling towards the flesh. I would say this, that it's not a 50-50 deal. Because Paul uses a word here Flee, and flee or follow is a really strong word. It means to pursue. So if I'm just sort of sitting there waiting for the flesh or the spirit to act on me, then I'm gonna lose every time. But if I understand what the spirit of God is doing, he is developing in me a strong desire to pursue. Pursue what? righteousness, sanctification, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you can't whip that up in the sin nature. The Spirit of God causes you, so the more you understand about, oh wow, the Spirit of God not only has the switch thing going on, I'm either the flesh or the, but he's teaching me in the process, even when I choose sin, he's using that to teach me how to pursue righteousness, how to pursue intimacy with Christ, how to do it by faith, and how important it is.

And again, it's one of those activities that he produces in you. I don't know how to say this other than the fact that what our faith does is let God do what He wants to do. It doesn't make it happen. It allows God to come and do what He wants to do, which is to make the Lord Jesus the most important thing in your life, even above yourself. So that's question eight. Where does the motivation come from in order to pursue? Where does it come from? It comes from the Spirit of God and His work in us.

So you wake up in the morning and you say, you know, I'm not pursuing hard enough. What do you do about that? Mike said on Sunday, we gotta pursue. So I'm gonna pursue. What have you just done? You've made a law out of pursuit. It's not like, pursuit is not like the cop car that's chasing you down because you're driving too fast. How do you get this pursuit going? Or put it better, how is this thing to pursue generated in the heart of the believer? How does that happen?

Well, one thing it says in there, to pursue with those who call upon the name of the Lord. Sounds like it's who do you aim with. That's pretty cool. Those who call upon the name of the Lord. Now, you can, you know, go to Sunday school and read and go to sermons and da-da-da, and as you begin to find out, about the principles that are involved in this new life we have. And so you get to a point where you, the Spirit of God starts to, you begin to recognize that the Spirit of God is actually working in me. He's actually doing something.

And so I'm not liking what I used to really value so much, but I'm beginning to like this pursuit of the Lord a little more. And this is not so important. This is becoming more and more important. I've had some trials over here which made this look a lot better.

You begin to realize in your life that, my goodness, when the Lord says, I've given you my spirit in order to cause you to walk in my ways, you begin to be aware that, wow, he's been doing his job all along. I just didn't know it, or wasn't totally aware of it. But as you go along, you start to see it. And so when somebody like me asks a question, where does the motivation come from in order to pursue, it comes from the Spirit of God.

He's the one who does it. He's the one that enables and educates about the Christian life. He does it. You respond. What do you call the response? Faith. Faith isn't the activator, faith is the receiver of this wonderful thing, this wonderful person of the Holy Spirit.

I think also it's kind of, I don't know how to say this, as the Lord looks better, more beautiful than what the world is offering. Again, your eyes are turning towards Him more. That's more enticing than the world. That's more important to you than what the world is offering you. When you start realizing that, that's when you start focusing on and pursuing the righteousness, I think. And it all goes back to where we always say, intimacy with the Lord. When you realize who he is and that's your life, that becomes more enticing than what the world can offer.

I think that's right. And I think that if we're going to teach anything, we need to teach that principle. you know, that I can give you a set of laws that you need to obey and it's gonna fix your problem right away. All it's gonna do really is make it worse. And I think the other element of spiritual growth is it's a slow process. I'm quoting someone else who said, God works at glacier speed. That means in 40 years maybe you move an inch. But he's working and you're learning.

Why would God do it that way? I think that God gets way more glory to take a human being who's totally dominated by the sin nature and lead them to believe in the person and work of Christ, then crucify him, bury resurrected positionally in Christ, and then begin the work of conforming him to the image of Christ. That brings way more glory to God than if he said, well, once you believe, we're going to zip you out of here to heaven.

I had in my notes for this exact question, Philippians 2.13, where it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

That's right. Exactly what you're saying. He's doing it for His good pleasure. And the law, like you said, that can name that desire, but it can't produce the pursuit of it. But it is God who produces that pursuit for His good pleasure. It's a different thing altogether. Yeah, it is. But, you know, you've got to learn that. You've got to learn it.

I think the thing also, just kind of a holistic thing, which is better, a relationship or a thing? What was the last part? Which is better, a relationship, a great relationship with somebody, or a thing? Something, a Ferrari, or a red whatever? A relationship. The relationships are always more important than anything you can get.

Sure. And I think that's the key we need. The relationship with the Lord is the key. The other things draw away. Yeah. And it's the relationship, the intimacy in the relationship that is really the drawing factor. And the more important thing is the more lasting. Yeah. Well, relationships are permanent. Yeah.

You know, they just are. Especially if they're related. You wake up one day and you say, you know, I think God actually wants to have a relationship with me. Really? Oh, and not only that, he's gonna make that happen. That's a pretty cool idea. And imagine, as this relationship goes with the Lord Jesus, is there anything that can break that up?

Nothing, unless you decide to, well, I think I like sinning a lot better. Well, he'll say, a guy said to me, I like this sinning more than I like Christ. I said, well, have fun, go for it. But when you hit the wall doing 40 miles an hour with your helmet off, then you'll know that God is in charge of your, using your sinfulness to cause you to grow in this relationship with Him.

So, anyway, we gotta go. Let's pray. Father, how thankful we are for Your Word. How thankful we are for Your principles and Your teaching. the love you have for us, and what you desire for us, as Courtney said, to have a relationship with the God of the universe, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. We're so thankful for that, and we pray in His name, amen.