God doesn't need our help to accomplish us in the process. I've had in mind an incident that took place some time ago that some of our existing elders may even recall. It was when we were still in the high school, we had no building of our own, and our offices were on 91, along there opposite the Shell Station. And so our elders' meetings took place in those offices, and the men would gather and assemble there. And one evening, as I arrived, one of the men had got there a little early and had availed himself of coffee, which was absolutely fine. That was part of the plan. But he actually was using my mug.
And I'm a little strange about that. And so I said to him, I said, That's my mug. He was a Southern man, has gone back to the South, a dear man, he and his wife. And he was notorious at the elders' meetings for a line that he used infrequently. He used to say, I'm gon' say my peace.
And then I'm gon' hush. And so on this occasion, he said his peace in response to my pointing out that he had invaded my territory, at least as it came to utensils. And we came back at the subsequent elders' meeting to discover that there were mugs placed at everybody's place in the elders' meeting, including my own. These mugs were not exactly the most beautiful-looking things. They had actually been commissioned by him and made by somebody else in pottery. They were blue, and on each of the mugs, in red, it said, This is not Alistair's mug. And so he said his peace, and he felt it was important to point out to me in his own inimitable style that really I had no rights over any mug at all, as it happened. And actually, he made a mug from me, and mine said, This is Alistair's mug.
And it was in my mind, because although I had really no proprietary rights over any of the utensils, that is not true of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has the proprietary right over every vessel that he picks up and chooses to use. And it is that picture to which we come this morning. Paul has been providing pictures all the way through, striking pictures at the beginning of a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. And then this morning, there is this further picture of a vessel or of a utensil.
It's not an unfamiliar picture. Paul makes use of it himself. In fact, it is used to describe Paul himself when he's converted.
In Acts chapter 9, in the account of Paul's encounter with the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, when Ananias is dispatched to minister to Saul of Tarsus and he recoils from the prospect, God assures Ananias by telling him, You can go safely to Saul of Tarsus, although he's been a terrorist and an opponent of the gospel, because he is, says God, my chosen vessel—skew us—the same word, my chosen vessel, to bear my name before the Gentiles. And of course, Paul picks that up and uses it in 2 Corinthians, where he talks about the treasure of the gospel being placed in the lives of near earthen vessels so that the power might be seen to belong to God. So, the picture is not hard to get. Some of you, as you look at the phrase now, in a great house, are immediately thinking of Downton Abbey, and that is not a bad notion of the magnitude and wonder and splendor of that material which was there for honorable use and for the distinction that was present with wood and clay that would have been, if you like, downstairs.
So, the picture is a clear one, but we don't want to miss it. I take it that the great house is the church of God, right? And so, if the great house is the church of God, then it follows that the master of the house is none other than the Lord Jesus himself. If in verse 19, that is, Paul has made mention of the architecture, the structure of the house, particularly the firm foundation on which it stands, now he changes his picture from the structure to the contents of the house, and he is, I think, continuing the thought that he has already been sharing with Timothy concerning the distinction between good workers and bad workers, between the kind of worker that he wants Timothy to be who is approved, the kind of workers that he shouldn't be, like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who are obviously unapproved, those with whom God finds disapproval. So the picture is there in verse 20. In a great house there are some vessels that are used in a very honorable way, and there are others that are dishonorable.
He then goes on from the picture in verse 20 to what we will refer to as the privilege in verse 21. I have three peas this morning. I'm quite fond of peas. My wife can tell you that.
But these peas are just to help me hang my thoughts. First of all, the picture in 20 and the privilege in verse 21. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use. And so the privilege is to be a vessel for honorable use.
Nothing particularly hard in that either. I, along with you, if you are in Christ, make it onto the king's honors list. And some of the most unlikely people from an earthly perspective are on that list. We really make a mistake when we start to think in terms of honorable service as a very public thing, a very profiled thing, a very named-oriented thing. No, the God who sees in secret is the God who will reward us openly. He will not forget your endeavors.
He will not forget the secret things of your own prayer life, of your own engagement with those who are under your care, and so on. God has his own honors list, and he is in the business of setting people up into honorable service. Menial tasks, unseen engagements, whatever it might be. This is the great privilege. In fact, there is no greater privilege. That's what he's saying to Timothy. And by derivation, he's saying it to all Christian ministers and Christian workers throughout all ages.
What a privilege! And what is involved? Well, you will notice what the text says. It is to be a vessel for honorable use. Number one, set apart as holy. Set apart as holy.
It's not just used for everything and anything. If you are in Christ, God sets you apart from all that you once were, to all that you are now in Christ, in order that you might be all that he desires for you to be. Set apart as holy. That's why Paul, when he makes application of all of the doctrinal foundation that he provides in Romans, eventually says, Therefore I beseech you, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated, set apart, holy to God.
Set apart as holy. Secondly, useful to the Master. What a wonderful privilege it is, just to be useful to God. I wonder, do you feel yourself to be useful or useless? Don't let the devil tell you you're useless. You're not useless. God has set you apart in order that he might use you. He'll use you in a way that is unique to yourself, in relationship to the gifts that he's given you, to the place that he has assigned you, and so on.
Don't worry about what someone else is doing or where they're going or what their profile might be. God sets you apart to honorable service. Useful and ready for every good work.
Ready for every good work. In other words, a utility player. Another kind of individual who says, Well, the only place that I could possibly play on this team is this. If you don't understand my giftedness and my impact and so on, then I just won't be able to play for you. No, this is the person who says, Look, I want to play on this team so badly that if you will give me any jersey with any number on it and put me on any place on the field, I will play on this team. That's the honorable service. Set apart not to profile ourselves but to set apart to the wonderful privilege of being placed on his team.
I play on his team. Well, you say, But haven't you missed a phrase here at the beginning of verse 21? Yes, I have. I'm glad you noticed, because I missed it purposefully so that I could come back to it. Therefore—which is the link with verse 20, the picture—therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable. In other words, Paul says, Your usefulness … is directly related to your cleanliness. This privilege or this promise is conditioned upon our cleansing ourselves if anyone cleanses himself. In other words, in the process of becoming like Jesus, we don't sit back and simply wait for God to do things in a vacuum. We are engaged in saying no to what is wrong, in saying yes to what is right, in engaging in the fellowship of God's people rather than in being isolated from God's people, in engaging God in prayer, saying yes to seeking God in prayer, rather than saying, No, I'll just go on my own. And so that cleansing process is a vital process, if anyone cleanses himself.
Now, think about it in relationship to what he's been saying here. He's been talking about the fact that in Ephesus, as he predicted, there would arise people who diverted from the truth, whose minds became infected with that which was poisonous in relationship to the truth of the gospel. So I take it as pretty obvious that he has in mind the cleansing of our minds from false teaching, the cleansing of our hearts from false attractions, and the cleansing of my will from false agendas. And think about it, it all starts in our minds.
It all begins between our ears. The vessel that is used by God, says Paul, is to be untainted by the moral and doctrinal dishonor that had invaded Ephesus. He'd urged them, as we saw in our reading, to make sure that they were alert to this, and now he says to Timothy, Timothy, if you are going to be a worker that does not need to be ashamed, who rightly divides the word of truth, remember this and encourage others to see this picture of honorable service that is therefore the great privilege in being made useful to the master. That then brings us to our third letter, our third word, which is the word pursuit. Pursuit. The picture in 20, the privilege in 21, the pursuit to which he calls his readers in verse 22.
Now, I recognize there is another verb there. We'll come to that in just a moment. But here's the way Paul is providing us with this material. Essentially, he's anticipating the question, what practical steps need to be taken if one is going to be useful to the master?
That's really what he's answering. What practical steps need to be taken if I'm going to be a vessel for honorable use, if I'm going to, like Paul, finish the race that is marked out for me? Somebody was telling me in between services that there was a hundred-mile track run in Cleveland yesterday, was it? Or something like that? Or trail run? A trail run for a hundred miles they were running. The people who were good runners apparently finished as it got dark.
The rest of them are still running right now as we speak. And I think I'm tempted to think of my finishing the race or running the race in terms of a few bursts of enthusiasm followed by chronic inertia, but rather the picture from the trail race here in Cleveland is probably the better picture. How are we going to run the hundred miles without just throwing ourselves down in disappointment or in despair? How is it going to be done?
Well, he tells us right here. It's going to involve running from, it's going to involve running after, and it's going to involve running with. First of all, you will notice the word flee. So, flee youthful passions. Well, it's a great verb, flee, isn't it? I'm not sure that it's much in common parlance. I don't really hear young people saying, flee, from the approaching motor car. But it would be a good verb. It's a fine verb.
And it's not hard to understand. Flee youthful passions. How youthful was Timothy? We don't actually know. He could have been as old as forty. Well, that's encouraging. Then sixty really is the new forty. And so we can all relax a little bit. What are these youthful passions?
Well, who knows? But I would think the inordinate desire for pleasure over God's glory and grace, particularly perhaps in the realm of the physical appetites that would involve indulgence, either materially or sexually. Inordinate pleasure, an inordinate desire for power, the desire to be number one always and in every circumstance, and the desire for possessions, so that we can make sure that we have it all. And so Paul says, I want you to flee from that kind of stuff. Run away. Doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? What am I supposed to do?
Make a run for it. In other words, when we come up against sin, you're not supposed to sit around and discuss it. It's not an occasion for dialogue. It's not even a time for prayer.
Don't misunderstand me. But if I had a dollar for every person that told me, Well, I'm just praying about whether I should do this or not, and in the Bible it says you shouldn't do it. I don't know why you're having a prayer time. God says, There's no need to pray about this. I already told you.
It's out. We don't have to have a discussion on it. What Paul is saying is you need to get as far away from it as possible and as quickly as possible. And that affects everything, loved ones. You've got to work it out for yourselves.
I can't spoon-feed it to you. You've got to determine what you're able to handle in relationship to your reading and in relationship to your viewing and in relationship to the company that you keep and in relationship to all the things that seek to bombard your mind on a daily basis. What you're able to handle under God, in obedience to the Word of God, and by the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to be a vessel for honor? Do you want to be useful to God? And flee. You say, That's very negative.
That's why he balances it out. Because he says not only run from, but run towards. Run towards what? Run towards righteousness. I thought the righteousness was provided for us.
Of course it is. Romans 3, But now a righteousness from God has come to us by grace through faith. And then some people say, Well, if the righteousness comes to us by grace through faith, if we're accepted on account of an alien righteousness, shouldn't we then just be able to go out and sin as much as we want?
And Paul tackles that. He says, No, God forbid, that would be absolutely ridiculous. That would prove that you never understood the provision of his righteousness. No, the righteousness that is safely provided to the child of God is then pursued by that child of God. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
At bottom line, it means to do the right thing. First question, every question, every day, all the time, What is the right thing to do? No, what is the expedient thing to do? What will…? You know, whatever it… No, what is the right thing to do? The honorable vessel pursues the right thing.
Righteousness, faith, taking God at his Word, love—if we love one another, says John, God abides in us, his love is perfected in us—and peace, not being unsettled and swerving from the truth as a result of the godless and irreverent babble, not becoming argumentative and quarrelsome, which we will come to in verse 24. No, this is what we're pursuing. And notice, finally, that this pursuit does not take place on our own. Does not take place on our own. One of the great lies of the devil is that, you know, we can just get by on our own.
No. No, this is a great house that God is putting together. It's his church. He brings us into the relationship of his people. And he does so because he loves us and cares for us and because we need each other. And that's why those who name the name of the Lord—verse 19—depart from iniquity, and those who name the name of the Lord are those who call upon the Lord, who call upon him in prayer, who call upon him for help, who call out to him in praise, who are prepared to say, Search me, O God, and know my heart, and try me and know my anxious thoughts. Now, you and I both know, because we've taught this to our children, that there are people in whose company it's easy to be good, and there are people in whose company it's easy to be bad.
And it depends what you want to do. If you want to be bad, you know, who do you want to hang with? You know, if you just want to eat big, big, sticky buns every morning, then you know where to go. Go to the sticky bun crowd. You don't want to hang around with those juicers, for goodness' sake. Oh, no, I'm just having a juice.
Whoa, no, excuse me. But if you do want to do that, you don't want to get with the sticky bun brigade, because then you—you know? So there's people in whose company it's easy to be good and in whose company it's easy to be bad. There are those who take us on to honorable service, and there are those who spoil our service. Bad company corrupts good morals. But notice this. The privilege of usefulness is tied to the pursuit of godliness.
The privilege of usefulness is tied to the pursuit of godliness. Some of you are surgeons here this morning. You don't use dirty instruments. At least I hope you don't. Of course you don't. You're not going to go, hey, give me the—well, I can't find the such-and-such, says the nurse. Well, just give me one of the old ones that was lying around.
No, it's not going to happen. And God doesn't just look down and say, just give me any old rubbish. I'll use them. No, he says, I'm looking for clean instruments.
So clean yourself up, he says. You want to be used by me? Let me finish with one of my other songs from boyhood.
It goes like this. Only to be what he wants me to be every moment of every day, yielded completely to Jesus alone every step of the pilgrim way, and just to be clay in the potter's hands, ready to do what his will commands, only to be what he wants me to be every moment of every day. And if we will say that individually, and if we will embrace it congregationally, then the picture will be our experience in privilege as we continue to pursue, to press on towards the goal to which we've been called heavenward in Christ Jesus, so that the generations that come behind us will the occasion to be thankful that we didn't quit in the middle of the race. We're learning together about the privilege of faithfully serving God.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. In seeking to serve the Lord, attending Sunday worship plays an important role. When we gather with other believers at our local church, the Holy Spirit is present with us in a particularly powerful way.
We get to experience a small preview of the glory that is still to come. That's what the book we're recommending to you today explores. The title of the book is Gather, Loving Your Church As You Celebrate Christ Together. This is a book that reveals God's design for worship, what happens when we gather to worship, how we can make the most of each Sunday as a body of believers. The book Gather will help you make local church attendance an important priority each week, and it will help you participate fully and joyfully. Ask for your copy of the book Gather today when you donate to support the ministry of Truth for Life. Go to truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now tomorrow we'll find out why it's important for pastors and teachers to be convincing and not quarrelsome as they defend biblical truth. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
