Sermon Transcript
Hey, I’ll be honest with you. I’m always honest with you, actually, but I just wanted to tell you that today, that today I’ll be honest with you. The passage that we are looking at today is a difficult text for me. It may not be a difficult text for other folks, but it is for me. If you are a guest with us, we often use this teaching time to study books of the Bible kind of sequentially, verse by verse.
So, we’ll look at a few verses and then the next week we’ll look at the few verses immediately after those. And so, perhaps the greatest benefit to teaching that way is that nothing is ever left out. If you teach topically, which means you kind of pick different topics, marriage, finance, parenting, instead of going verse by verse, and then you jump all around the Bible to find verses on those topics and then you talk about them, if you do that, that’s totally fine. But it’s more likely that something could get left out. And to tell you the truth, if I were jumping all around different topics, I’d probably leave this one out.
So, I’m grateful personally for my personal journey with Christ. I’m grateful that I have to deal with it because for many of us, me included, the only way that we can actually know that we are for sure following God instead of following ourselves is if we disagree with Him sometimes, but we submit to what He says anyway. If we disregard everything in Scripture that we disagree with or that doesn’t fit into our view of God, then really we are just following ourselves, right? Like if you are in the military and your commanding officer says, climb that hill, And you say, eh, not today. I don’t really think I should climb that hill.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to climb that hill. I think that’s a bad game plan. So instead of climbing that hill, I’m going to take a nap. Okay, like if you do that, fine. Your commanding officer will deal with you, I guess.
I get it, right? I mean, who wants to climb a hill? But let’s be honest. Let’s be honest about who we are following if we do that. We’re not following the commanding officer.
We’re following ourselves. We’re following our own ideas about what we think is right and good and true. So, the only way really that we will know if we are following the commanding officer is if we don’t want to climb the hill, we don’t think it’s a good idea to climb the hill, we may not understand why we were told to climb the hill, but we We climb it anyway, right? That’s how we know for sure that we are following someone other than ourselves. So with that intro, let’s read our text for today, and then you’ll wonder, why did you have a problem with that?
It seems pretty simple. And then I’ll tell you why I have a problem with that. So 2 Timothy 2:20-22, which will be up on the screen, it’ll be in your bulletin insert there. You can follow along however you would like. Now, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable.
Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy. Useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with all of those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So now you’re wondering, what’s the big deal, Dan? Kind of sounds like, be good and God will use you.
That seems pretty simple. I’m like, yeah, that does seem pretty simple. So what’s the problem with that? Okay, here’s my problem with that. God uses messed up people.
God uses messed up people from the beginning of the story to the end of the story, because messed up people are the only kind of people that there are.
So how does be good and God will use you fit in with any of the rest of the Bible. That’s my problem. And because of that glaring inconsistency with the rest of Scripture, our outline this morning is a little bit different. We’ll talk about what this can’t mean, what it might mean, and what it must mean, or what it at least means, kind of the minimum meaning. So, you will definitely hear my bias, all right, which you already have, which is grace.
But I pray that you’ll also hear submission to the authority of this text as well. Okay, so what it can’t mean, this is what it can’t mean. God only works with good people. It can’t mean that. And I think we have to mention that because this is what some of us might think when we read it.
It might be kind of our knee-jerk reaction. We might think something like, I guess God can’t use me because I’m too sinful. God doesn’t want to use me because I’m still wrestling with these big sin issues. God is sitting over there waiting for me to get my act cleaned up before He’s going to work with me. Anything like that is just completely contrary to everything else we see in Scripture.
Let’s think about Paul himself, the guy who wrote these words in this letter to Timothy that we just read a second ago. Timothy is not a book, it’s actually a letter, it’s an ancient letter that was preserved. The guy who wrote it, his name is Paul. He wrote these words to Timothy. He also wrote other letters, one of them to the Romans, where Paul, the same guy who wrote these words, he says he keeps doing evil actions even though he wants to do good actions.
So Paul, the very writer of these words that says, cleanse yourself of dishonorable, has not completely cleansed himself of dishonorable acts. But God had been using him. It is actually difficult to think of someone God used more in the first century than Paul. So, we can’t read this and think God only uses good people, or God doesn’t want to use me right now because I am too messed up. That is a wrong reading of this text.
If you are not convinced yet, let’s think about Abraham. Abraham, who is called the father of faith, Abraham, who you had probably heard of before you walked in here today, even if you have never walked into a church before, you’ve probably heard of Abraham. Abraham, who is claimed by the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians as someone God used in a special way. You know, Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham. This is why I’m not in the choir, right?
That Abraham. Twice when Abraham thought that his life was in jeopardy, he was in a foreign land and he didn’t know how the king of that land felt about him traveling through, like, is the king cool that I’m here or is the king going to kill me for being in his territory? Okay, this is Abraham stressing. Twice when Abraham was in that situation, he gives his wife to be the wife of the king. Of the land.
2 separate kings, separate instances. Abraham lies to both kings by saying his wife is his sister, and then, hey, you know, because she is my sister, you could take her to be your wife, and then we are kind of like family, so you won’t kill me.
And while we are talking, you know, because you are going to take her to be your wife, Maybe you can give me a dowry kind of arrangement for her hand in marriage. The text doesn’t record Abraham asking for that, but the text does record that Abraham was financially compensated at least once, the other time doesn’t say, but he was financially compensated for handing his wife over to be someone else’s wife.
Later, it seems like Abraham attempts to justify this behavior. By saying, hey, I didn’t really lie because she actually is my half-sister. Oh, well, I didn’t realize that. That makes everything better. You’re right.
We shouldn’t fault you at all, Abraham. What, are you kidding me? Let’s say you didn’t lie. Let’s just grant you that little technicality. Sure, we still haven’t dealt with the larger issue on the table here, Abraham.
You were prostituting your wife to save your own skin. You got any excuses for that one? Or are you just the worst scumbag ever? You’re the worst scumbag ever? Yeah, that’s kind of what we thought.
Even the ancient kings thought it was pretty messed up. They’re like, why would you do this? Someone does that today and we arrest him. As we should. Someone does that in the Bible, and he’s the father of faith.
Why? Is it because God approves of that kind of thing? No, of course not. God doesn’t approve of that at all. Why then?
Why is that in the Bible? Because with God, no one is beyond hope or salvation. God will reach into the slimiest pit and pull out the worst offender and give him a new hope and a new future. Never say something like, I’m too sinful for God to use me. God is bigger than your mess.
Do you realize God started using Abraham in the middle of those events? Abraham was given a new name in the middle of those events. Abraham was credited righteousness in the middle of those events. Abraham was promised descendants in the middle of those events. God did not wait until Abraham cleansed himself of dishonorable acts before He stepped into his life, picked him up, gave him a new hope, and a new future.
Now Abraham acted faithfully later on, and that’s what we would expect. God jumps into our lives, gives us His own righteousness, and then begins to change us from the inside out. So our faithful following later on, even though we still struggle in it, is a confirmation that God has already worked in our lives. It is not a condition for God to begin working. In our lives.
God doesn’t wait for us to get it together before he jumps in and starts working with us, right? In fact, really our only hope of getting it together in the first place is if God jumps in. Okay, that’s what it doesn’t mean, and again, it’s important because I think that’s probably our first reflex when we read this text. I’m too sinful for God to use me. I’m too much of a mess for God to work with me.
Just get that out of your head.
So what might it mean? I’ll give you 3 of these, okay? This is what it might mean, but I’m not utterly convinced of any of them. First, this says, cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable, and you will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. Cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable.
Well, in Christian theology, how are we cleansed? And who does the actual cleansing? John, who was one of Jesus’ best friends, we think he would probably know the answer to that. He answers this question by saying, if we confess our sins, He, that’s God, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us, there’s our word, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So God does it, but we have a role in our cleansing.
Which is repenting, confessing, seeking the Lord’s forgiveness. But forgiveness and cleansing is granted by God. It’s not something we do for ourselves. And if that’s the case, our verse today might mean that cleansing is accomplished through seeking forgiveness. Cleanse yourself is seek forgiveness, maybe.
That might look like how Paul acted in Romans 7 when he wrote that letter. He says he doesn’t know, he says he’s not doing what he should be doing and he hates that and he wants to change and he trusts Jesus to save him from it. That is what repentance looks like. That is what asking for forgiveness looks like. And that is what John says will cleanse us from our unrighteousness.
This interpretation actually fits nicely in how Jesus seemed to divide the world. Jesus didn’t divide the world so much into good people and bad people. Honorable and dishonorable wasn’t really good and bad in Jesus’ mind. The difference between honorable and dishonorable for Jesus seemed to be the difference between humble and prideful. You look at the people on whom Jesus had compassion, and you look at the people Jesus rejected, the division wasn’t good and bad.
There were all these prostitutes and tax collectors who Jesus embraced, and there were these religious leaders who Jesus rejected. The distinction was humble and prideful. If someone said, you know, even if they were just wildly terrible, if they said, I’m messed up, Jesus, I need help, save me, forgive me, Jesus said, come on, you’re on my team. You see, that’s humble, the I need help attitude. The people who said, I’m a pretty good person, I don’t really need you, Jesus, I’ll stand on my own righteousness, that’s prideful, and Jesus rejected them.
So maybe that’s what this means. If we’re in the camp that seeks forgiveness, we experience cleansing, and that is what makes us honorable. My hesitation with that interpretation is the verse says, Cleanse yourself. This doesn’t say seek forgiveness and God will cleanse you, even though that is true and that’s described elsewhere, that’s not quite what he’s saying here. So is he just getting at that idea by writing this process out kind of more shorthand?
Maybe, but I’m not really convinced of that. So, second possibility of what this might mean, God looks more for progress than perfection. Or you could say God looks more for direction than destination. Are we moving toward Him or away from Him? This is a possible interpretation because the words flee and pursue in this passage, flee youthful passions and instead pursue faith, love, righteousness, peace.
Those flee and pursue are in-progress action words. It doesn’t imply that we have arrived anywhere. We’re still on the run. So the question would be for us, which direction are we heading? Toward youthful passions?
Which, what are those, you’re wondering? We often want to jump to assume that youthful passions or youthful passion only means lust, which it does. It absolutely includes that, pornography and the rest of it, but it’s more than that. Youthful passions is all of the impulsiveness that can, not always, okay, the impulsiveness that can characterize youth, you know, children, young adults. I’m sorry to your kids and grandkids and our students, not them of course, your offspring are perfect and our students are perfect, obviously we’re talking about other students, right, that you see out in the world.
The lack of wisdom that comes from experience is youthful passions. The lack of prudence, the, I see something, I want it, I’m going to go for it, and who cares about the consequences? Youth are more like that in general, more like that than people who got burned by doing that earlier in life, and now they have learned their lesson. So is that the direction you’re heading, an impulsive selfishness, or instead are you heading toward God? Now obviously it’s not going to be 100% one way or the other, and it can feel like this battle that Paul describes in Romans 7, you know, 2 steps forward, 3 steps back, 1 step forward, like am I even making any progress?
I think it can feel like that, but the question is, are we still in the fight, Are we still swinging? Are we still scraping for every inch we can get in God’s direction? Where are we even aiming? What destination are we even trying to reach? If we are pursuing sin and fleeing from God instead of fleeing sin and pursuing God, it’s less obvious to see how God’s going to use us in an honorable way.
If we say something like, I don’t want anything to do with you, God, we’re probably not being set apart as holy, useful to God for some good work. We’re not aiming for God. We’re not interested in God. So why would God use us in that way? It could be kind of like out of respect for us on his side.
He says, okay, you don’t want anything to do with me? All right, I won’t use you then. On the other hand, if we’re aiming for righteousness, faith, love, even as inconsistent as we can be in that desire, if that is our desire, God might use us in the direction that we’re heading. So maybe that’s what Paul means here. Timothy, head toward God and God will use you in that direction.
Third possibility of what this might mean, and fair warning up front, if it means this, it’s terrifying for all of us. In his letter to the Romans, Paul, same author as who we were reading this morning, uses this exact same metaphor of honorable vessels and dishonorable vessels. So, what he shares in Romans about these 2 different types of people might help explain what he means here since it’s the same author and the same metaphor. So, let’s read how he used this metaphor in Romans. Verse 21, has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable?
So, you can see the same terminology, and you can go back and read the context if you want, but the But the potter is God and we are the clay. This is saying God has the right to make some of us honorable vessels and some of us dishonorable. But listen to the next verse in this letter. What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make His power known, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy?
That verse has potentially endless ramifications that we can’t chase down today, but for our purposes, what is notable is that the dishonorable vessels are destroyed by God’s wrath and the honorable vessels receive mercy, meaning if we are not cleansed, we are marked for destruction.
If we aren’t fleeing youthful passions and pursuing righteousness, faith, love, peace, it could indicate we are vessels marked for destruction. In other words, what we choose to do reveals who we are. Jesus says you will know a tree by its fruit. The fruit coming out of our lives shows what kind of tree we are. And if the fruit coming out of our lives is pursuit of youthful passions, it indicates we are dishonorable vessels marked for destruction.
You’re like, wait a minute, how does that fit with this God of grace that jumps into a scumbag’s life and rescues him? How does it fit with Jesus not dividing the world into good and bad, but humble and prideful?
It fits perfectly, of course, so we could keep looking at Abraham. God jumped into this nightmare of a life and gave him righteousness, which Abraham didn’t have before. God set him on a new path and a new plan for his future, and lo and behold, down the road, Abraham acted faithfully. He was one kind of tree, a horrible, horrible tree, a dishonorable vessel, bad fruit, selling his wife. Then God breaks in, changes him into an honorable vessel, and then down the road, Abraham is different, more faithful, noticeably different than he was before.
The new fruit in his life confirms that he has been changed. His actions did not change who he is. His new actions are proof that he has been changed. Changed. This is what James is saying when he talks about Abraham.
Abraham’s faith was made complete by what he did. His faith was perfected by what he did. The question of where Abraham stood in reference to what God had done in his life was settled by his later faithful actions. If the later actions are not faithful, if we don’t have a motivation to pursue God instead of pursuing sin, if we’re not in the fight, if we’re fleeing from God, If that’s our trajectory, it’s proof God has not jumped into our life the way that He jumped into Abraham’s life. Paul might be saying, listen, Timothy, don’t mess around with grace.
It’s not a license to pursue sin.
If you aren’t getting dishonorable actions out of your life, It’s an indication, maybe, that you don’t really belong to God and you’re marked for destruction. It might mean that.
And if it does, then God help us all.
Now, for what it at least means.
It at least means allowing the dishonorable to remain will cost us. Our influence will not be what it could have been, and it will matter to us. We read these verses, cleanse yourself of dishonorable actions, flee youthful passions, pursue God because it’s the honorable vessel that’s ready for good works. There’s no way that we can read these verses, like, no matter how big on grace that we are, like I am, and I’m, like, maxed out in my understanding and belief and grace, there is still no way to read these verses and conclude our actions have no influence on how we are used. There is no way that we can come to that conclusion.
How we live our life will make a difference in how God uses us in some way. Here are some sobering realities. Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised Land. David wasn’t allowed to build the temple. There are doors that truly have the potential to close permanently depending on how we choose to live our lives.
If Moses was limited and David was limited, don’t kid yourself, we will be limited. Now, if you’re like me and you’re cynical and you’re rebellious, I can hear what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, meh, it doesn’t really matter to me how much God uses me. I’d rather pursue youthful passions than get used by God anyway. Whatever door He closes, that’s just fine with me.
If I get to have what I want right now, that’s more important to me than whatever I might be missing out on later. I know you’re thinking that because I have thought that, and we’re wrong.
We won’t think pursuing useful passions were worth it when we see what it costs us. We have no idea what hangs in the balance. We have no idea what it will cost us. And when we find out, 0% of us will believe that it was worth it.
One example from my life, which our young adults have heard before, and then we’ll end with a piece of hope. When I was in seminary, so like 2005 to 2008, one of the requirements to graduate was 2 semesters of an internship serving in a real-world setting. And I was like looking in my academic future, I saw my course load for the coming semesters. I thought it would be best to complete the internship requirement during some of my less academically rigorous semesters. Like I wanted to do the internship semesters while I had easy classes.
I didn’t want to do the internships later when I was having harder classes. That makes sense, right? My home church was willing to let me help out however I wanted to help out and count it as an internship. So I thought, great, I’ll get my internship signed off, I’m home fairly frequently anyway, I won’t have to do the internship later when I’m taking harder classes, right, like win-win-win. Except God said, don’t do it.
As clear as He has ever been with me, He said, don’t do this internship. So, I didn’t hear an audible voice, I’ll answer that question for you right now, but like, I knew what He was saying. Every time I thought about the internship with my church, every time I prayed about it, I had this like sick, nauseous gloom of despair that hung over me. Which didn’t make any sense to me, ’cause I’m like, clearly, this is the best answer, logically. And anytime I thought, maybe I’ll just try to find some other internship, anytime I thought that, maybe I won’t take this thing with my church, anytime I thought that, my soul filled with sunshine and rainbows.
I’ll suddenly whisk into a 1940s Disney musical where little cartoon birds would land on my shoulder, and we’d sing together. Like, I knew what God wanted, but I couldn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t do the internship right then. I thought, it’s during my easier coursework, I’m home a lot anyway. If a better internship comes along later, I’ll just do that one too, and then I’ll have an extra one, that’s okay. And if it does come along later, and I, you know, I want to do it during my harder semesters, then at least I could just do the internship without needing to do, like, the internship coursework along with it that you had to write these little papers about what you’re learning that week.
And I’m like, well, if it’s during my harder semesters, at least I won’t have to do those little papers. And I thought, like, any way you slice it, it’s better for me to do this internship now. Like, I, me, I couldn’t see any reason why it was a bad idea. So I said, even though I’m sure God doesn’t want me to do this, I’m gonna do it anyway. Because I can’t see anything wrong with it.
It’s pursuing useful passions. It’s impulsiveness. It’s immaturity. It’s flat-out disobedience to God. And I had no idea what hung in the balance.
So, first, the internship was a terrible experience. It was 2 semesters, so it was a pretty significant length of time. My job tasks were difficult, unpleasant, and unsuccessful. So, at the end of those semesters, I thought, wow, that was awful. I guess that’s why God didn’t want me to do it.
But at least it’s over. It wasn’t over. About a year later, an internship opportunity became available that I really wanted. My seminary sat on the undergraduate campus of a Christian college, so similar to how Talbot is at Biola. The undergraduate college itself employed campus ministers for college ministry, and the college ministry was hiring interns.
Other students from my seminary were applying for those college ministry internships because they needed the same internship requirement for their degree that I did. And this one for them was right on campus, so it was super convenient, and that’s why they wanted to apply for it. I didn’t care about the super convenience. I was interested because I wanted to pursue college ministry after graduating, And I thought, you know, college ministry internship would be a great experience. So I went through the application and interview process and they shot me down.
I didn’t get the internship. They gave it to some of my classmates who weren’t even interested in pursuing college ministry later. The reason they told me that they gave it to someone else is because, you can guess, They wanted to give it to a seminary student who still needed to complete the internship requirement for graduation, which I had already completed because I had done this internship with my home church. So taking the internship from my home church directly prevented me from getting the internship that I really wanted. And I thought, oh, that’s why God didn’t want me to do it.
I should have listened, but at least it’s over. Lesson learned. It wasn’t over. When I graduated in 2008, it so happened at that exact same time, the college minister at the largest college ministry in our area was leaving that position to become a head pastor, and I wanted his job. At the time, it was my dream job, preaching for 500 college students.
So I applied, I had some connections in that church, I actually got fairly far in the interview process. Biggest responsibility of the position was preaching, and I think they liked me for that reason. But they ultimately shot me down. I didn’t get that job. The reason they told me they chose someone else, you want to guess?
It was because I didn’t have any college ministry experience, like maybe an internship or something.
An internship exactly like the one I would have had if I had listened to God in the first place.
I didn’t know any of that hung in the balance. When God said, don’t do it, I just thought, I know I’m disobeying God, but it’ll be okay.
Whatever the consequences are, I can manage them.
Wrong.
So wrong.
Listen, whatever you’re into that’s dishonorable, and you think you can manage the potential fallout, or you think that whatever you lose in the future will be worth what you’re getting right now, you’re wrong.
You have no idea what hangs in the balance, and you will not be able to manage the fallout. It will hurt. It will seriously hurt. So leave it alone. Flee youthful passions.
Pursue love, faith, righteousness, peace.
Now, I said we were going to end on hope, so here it is.
Even if you’re like me and you’ve messed up terribly bad, and there are some doors that are permanently closed, And you’ll carry the pain of that decision for the rest of your life. Even if you are there, even if that’s where you are today, even if like Moses you didn’t get to go into the land flowing with milk and honey because of your decisions, here’s our hope. This is our hope. This is always our hope. All the promises of Scripture are still true.
God will use everything for your good. Romans 8:28. He will fulfill His purpose for you, Psalm 138:8. Even though it hurts, and I know it does, and even though it’s going to hurt forever, and the door really is closed, David never built the temple, God will use that pain. This is what happened to me.
God will use that pain to change you for the better. And by changing you, He will accomplish His purpose for you. He’s got you. He’s going to bring you home safely.
You will lose something. It will hurt. You will carry that scar.
And God will use it for your good.
Let’s pray.
Father, thanks for using us in our mess, and thanks for telling us to avoid messes.
Thank you for using everything for our good.
Thank you for closing some doors so we can learn to follow.
Continue to transform us, Lord. Change us in who you want us to be and fulfill your purpose for us. We ask all those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
