 2 Timothy chapter 2 beginning at verse 20, reading to verse 26. Paul writing 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 20 writes, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor, some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master prepared for every good work. Flee also youthful lust, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife, and a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach patience and humility, correcting those who are in opposition. If God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, then that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him to do his will. Let's begin with a brief introduction. It's going to take a moment. You might want to relax a little bit as I lay a foundation, and then we're going to move shifting gears into the practical application, but I always want to lay a bit of a foundation for us to see the context and understand the direction that Paul would be taking us in and the direction that this letter has brought us to. You see, throughout the New Testament there are various words that are given to us, various words that speak of what we simply call the church. And you know this, you read your Bible and you'll see this. There are so many words that sometimes the church is referred to as the body, or it's called the body of Christ, or it's referred to as the bride of Christ. The church is referred to as the temple of God, the temple of the spirit of God. The church is referred to as the people of God. There are various ways that the church, this called out ones, the Ecclesia, there are various words descriptors of what God intends us to be and how he is speaking of us as what we normally would just call the church. In this particular verse, the church is called, and notice with me, a great house. That's what he says. He says, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, so this great house is in reference to the church. The great house literally is a palace. He's speaking of something that's huge and beautiful. The word house is a metaphor. It's a metaphor that Paul has used earlier in his reference to the church. In 1 Timothy, for example, chapter 3 verse 15, he had said this. He said, if I tarry long that you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which he says is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. So the church is the house of God. So Paul is speaking here of this great house, and the great house that he's referring to is the church. And he's saying that in the church, in this great house, there are vessels. There are vessels that are for, notice, honor, and there are others that are for what he refers to as dishonor. So that would be speaking of these vessels, would be speaking of members of the church. That Timothy is pastoring, but it can be extended to the body of Christ at large. Vessels. The word vessel there, when he speaks of vessels, is a reference to what some would call domestic utensils for want of a better word. The first of those things that you use in the house, domestic utensils. What is interesting is the word vessel is what is called a Greek metaphor also. And it would be a Greek metaphor for the body, because Greeks thought of souls living temporarily in bodies. And so vessel would speak of people attending church and belonging to the church vessels in this great house. So in the church, some of these vessels are honorable. Other vessels, and he's saying it, are dishonorable. Now, when he says there are vessels for honor, that word honor speaks of its value, what it's worth. Vessels for honor refers to believers who are faithful and useful to the Lord. Now, he's already been developing that in verses three through six. There, we're not going to go into it, but there he had begun speaking of the church in various ways. And he was speaking of good soldiers or a disciplined athlete, a hard-working farmer. And all of those were pictures of people who were faithful servants of the Lord within the confines of the body of Christ. And then he says there are also those that are dishonor. Dishonor is a word that is normally used in reference to shame and disgrace. They would be the cowardly soldiers, the undisciplined athlete, the lazy farmer. Well, tonight I want to share with you about how to become a vessel for honor. Now, here's something for all of us. To be a vessel for honor ought to be the premier desire of every believer in Christ. To desire to be a vessel used by the Lord that brings him glory, to be a vessel for honor. Listen, that ought to be our primary desire in life. Father, make me a vessel for honor. I want to be used by you. I want to be used in such a way that you are honored by my life and you receive glory. And so I want to speak about that. You see, when Paul is about to close this particular letter in 2 Timothy chapter 4, he says in verses 7 and 8, he says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will give to me on that day. And not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. I want to fight that good fight. I want to make it to the end and bring honor to him. So as I'm continuing to lay a bit of a foundation, there is a flow to the second chapter. In verse 1, he said, You therefore, my son, be strong in grace. In the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Then in verse 15, he said, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God. So the flow, one, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. But two, working within the framework of grace, verse 15 again, Be diligent. So be strong, but also be diligent. And become a workman that does not need to be ashamed. And what will the result be? If you're strong in diligent verse 21, you will be a vessel for honor. And so one, and I was sharing with you last time, we're together, those of you who are with me, that we are to be strong in the grace of God, not using God's grace as an excuse to continue in sin and then blame him for giving us grace and all. But we should live in the grace of God. And that's what he's saying. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And I was mentioning to you last time, but in that grace, there's a diligence. And that's what Paul again is saying here. So be diligent to become a workman. So how can we become useful in the hands of our master? Well, we begin with this grace and we diligently pursue that, which is pleasing to him. Second Corinthians chapter four, verse seven, we have this treasure in earth and vessels to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. And so by yielding myself and walking in the grace of God and diligently pursuing the things that are pleasing to him, my vessel, this personhood, this one who is filled with the presence of God is going to bring honor and glory to him. It'll all go to him. So in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Within the confines of the church are various categories of members. There are members who are gold and silver and also wood and clay. Now I want you to notice something, and this is not that subtle, but notice with me, they are arranged in what is called a descending value from gold, silver, wood to clay. That's a descending value. It shows you a descent in value. And so there are some that are gold and there are some that are clay. In God's house, the church, there are various kinds of vessels that are present. I'm just pointing that out. It's like your home. In every home there are vessels that are used for various things. Some of the vessels or utensils we have are for special occasions because of their value. We all understand this. It's Thanksgiving or it's Christmas or it's Easter and you have a special dinner. So you bring out the expensive paper plates, the plastic forks that look like silverware. You bring that out on a very special, very special day. So you have utensils that are saved for special use. And then there are other items in your home that are not used for special things. Some in this room have little plastic shovels that you use to clean out litter boxes with. You don't use that to stir and you use to pour the gravy on the mashed potatoes, right? Unless it's for your mother-in-law. So you understand what he's talking about. There's that fine china that someone thought they needed to give you that you've never used, but now it's a special occasion you bring it out. And then there are other things that you don't use for anything other than the most basic things. Well, in the church, vessels of gold and silver are the two levels of committed, maturing Christians. Gold speaks of a committed believer. Silver, less committed, yet both of them have great value. Gold and silver. So, like Paul would say in Colossians 323 and 24, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. As work into the Lord, not for men. Since you know that you'll receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it's the Lord Christ you're serving. You want to be a vessel of gold or silver. You want to be a vessel that brings honor to God. Well, then you do whatever it is you do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men. It's just what you do. It's like what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 924. Don't you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives a prize and then he goes and says, run in such a way that you may obtain it. Put aside everything that's going to hinder you and run with patience the race that is set before you. Run with this knowledge that you're doing so with eternity in mind. Don't get caught up with the now. Start looking at the then. Don't get caught up with the immediacy. That's one of the biggest problems that we have as a society today is instant gratification. I need to have it now. Lord, I need patience. Now, we have that mentality. I want patience now. Give it to me now. We don't understand process. We don't understand that some things take time. We don't understand that. The things that we want so much very often in the Lord's timing are things that he's going to have for us, but it takes some peeling away of the things of our life so that those things that he wants us to have are going to shine more brightly as he gives them to us. We don't understand that. We want these things now. Gold and silver have a heart to pursue the Lord and make that your daily desire. But you have clay and wood. Clay and wood are believers who don't mature in their faith. They remain immature. They're distracted. They're divided in heart. Their service is sporadic, occasional, and they don't understand the things of the Lord at all. Hebrews 5, 12 and 13 says it like this, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. You've come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. Solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. You graduate high school and you go to college. You can finish college, say you go. You can finish with a bachelor's degree, two and a half years or three years if you're diligent and you take a lot of units. Everybody here knows that. You go 21 units, 24 units. You can get it done quickly, but say you don't. Say you go the full four years. That's four years of college education. Now you think that I'd like to pursue my education a little bit longer than that, so I'm going to pursue a master's degree. A master's degree can take probably three years. So now you've added three years to the four years. That's seven years, seven years, and you're now a master. I wonder how many of us in this room have been Christians seven years that could not say we're yet mastering the things of God? Basic stuff, right? Basic stuff. How long have you been saved? 13 years. 13 years? You're a PhD. What's that spell? Food? No, no. I mean, 13 years, you've been walking with the Lord. You've been reading the Word, praying, seeking the Lord, and fellowship, prayer, serving God. 13 years. And sadly, let's face it sadly, a lot of 13-year-olds who are more like two-year-olds. That's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. He said, by now you ought to be teachers of the Word, but you still need to be taught. You're still infants because you're not taking what is given to you and putting it into practice. You're not doing what God says, and that was an exhortation. Listen, do you want to be gold and silver, or do you want to be wooden clay? You have options. And my encouragement is, oh, God help us to have a desire to be gold and silver. God help us not to be satisfied being less than that. Help us to put our diligence in the grace of God. Help us to grow. So that after four years, seven years, 10 years, we are fleeing youthful us and we're pursuing the things that matter. Help us to do that. Because listen, the church today doesn't need more cool people in it. Doesn't need more cool Christians. You know, the church needs genuine believers, people who are sold out for Christ. That's what we need. We don't need more technology. We need more prayers. We need more students. We need more doers of the things of God. Not just people who like to talk about it and can talk a good talk, but people say, you know, I'm going to roll my sleeves up and I'm going to do this because that's what I was called to do. See, it's up to you. You can be a vessel of wood and clay if you want. That's up to you. But I've made up my mind, no, I want to be at least silver. At least silver. I don't know that I'll ever be a vessel of gold. God knows that. But I do want to be at least silver. I don't want to be clay and I don't want to be wood. I don't want to be used by God. And I think that should be all of our desires, really. You see, churches will always have a mixture of maturity and immaturity. There are those who are excited about their faith. They love the Lord. They serve Him diligently. And then there are others who don't seem to care that much. They're not really growing and sometimes they even cause problems. So it's important to remember that Timothy is included as one of the vessels. And as I was just mentioning, I have to ask myself what kind of vessel I would like to be. The Lord gave to me, I've shared this before. Some of you have heard me say this, but the Lord gave to me something that I've remembered for many years that I'll use this in illustration right now. And that is this. I went to Beijing, China, years ago. And while I was in Beijing, we went for ministry. When I was in Beijing, one of my traveling companions had said to me that he had taken a walk around our hotel and had found a restaurant that the locals were eating at. And he said, let's get up tomorrow and go to this restaurant. Okay, so I did. We got up at like 5.30 in the morning and it was like winter. It's very cold, bundled up, wrapped up, you know, walking through the streets in Beijing from our hotel. And we finally make it to this little, it was literally a hole in the wall kind of establishment. Wooden floors, tables that looked like they had gone out to some pile of wood that had been thrown away and taken some nails and made benches and things and tables. It was that kind of little restaurant. And I still remember walking in and standing by the counter and there was one of these big vases, a big vase that was right next to the counter and I remember walking in standing with this friend of mine and all and then they seated us and they took us and gave us our breakfast and the breakfast cost us the penny, one American penny. Yeah, we got ripped off. It was bad. I remember it was purple. That's all I remember. It was bad. So I'm looking at this urn and I'm wondering why do they have an urn next to the counter like that? I mean, I'm one of these curious people. I'm wondering why? We're the only ones in the restaurant. Then the people start showing up and every one of them walked up to the urn first, put their thumb on their nose. Yeah. Uh-huh. They cleansed their sinuses in it because it was... Yeah, yeah, there you got it. It was... It was so cold outside. What happens when it's real cold outside? Your nose runs. Yeah, that was our floor show. The spirit of the Lord spoke to me, do you want to be a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor? What do you want to be? I promised you... and this sounds coarse, forgive me. I promise you the world will blow its nose on you if you want to be a vessel of dishonor. That's a fact. That's a fact. The vessel of dishonor the world has no respect for. And that's what you're going to be. Make up your mind. What do you want to be? I don't want to be a vessel of dishonor. I want to be a vessel for honor. I want to be used by God. So I want to discipline myself and walk in the grace of God so that my life shines for him because I can make up my mind to be one or the other. So how does that happen? Well, I'll show you verse 21. How does it happen? He says in verse 21, if anyone cleanses himself from the ladder, he'll be a vessel for honor. Now, obviously, we picked this up in the midst of his teaching and we have to ask ourselves, what are you referring to when you say cleansing yourself from the ladder? Well, we are, one, cleanses speaks of being cleaned out thoroughly or purged. To become a vessel for honor begins with a voluntary purity. And we're to purify or be cleansed from something. From what? He said from the ladder. Well, what do you mean from the ladder? Well, he's been speaking of in its context. He's been speaking of false teachers. That's what he's been speaking of that brings him to verse 20 and 21. So he's been speaking about cleansing yourself from the influence of false teachers. So the first thing, you want to be used by the Lord and be a vessel of honor, be pure from the influence of false teachers. Why? Because their influence will have an effect on your spiritual life and ultimately will cripple you. Bad doctrine produces corrupt behavior. Never forget that. You do what you believe. You live out your beliefs. You behave what you believe. Bad doctrine. Bad teaching produces corrupt lives. Action reveals affection. You see, bad teachers have an impact. Bad teachers actually, and you see it in verse 18, overthrow the faith of some. Bad teachers do that. They overthrow faith. They subvert and destroy or overturn the faith of believers. Bad doctrine produces ungodliness. And bad doctrine spreads like cancer and ultimately overturns people's faith. Bad doctrine always produces badly lived lives, always. Be careful who you allow to influence you in what you believe about God. Be careful. Just because somebody has a radio ministry, just because somebody writes books, just because somebody has a TV program that doesn't automatically follow that they're teaching you truth. Be very careful. And you say, well, that applies to you too, pastor. Yes, it does. Of course it does. Start with me. Start with me. I don't have a problem with that. You should. You should evaluate. Is it in context? Is the word rightly divided? Is it practically applied? Is this lining up with what we've received for 2,000 years as the history of the church's doctrine? Is it? Well, that really rests on you in that capacity. So be careful and be discerning about who you allow to influence your doctrine, your teachings. You see, I speak from experience as a young pastor in my late 20s. I was going to college and I mentioned on Sunday, this last Sunday that I had been an assisting pastor in another church and I did a lot of counseling and I did a lot of the counseling for the members of the church. And one of my majors at school was psychology. And I read a lot of books on psychology. Actually, the reading of books related to that subject was one of my hobbies. So I read some authors and I started developing different understandings of human behavior, et cetera. The movement that was taking place at that time where they were saying, the Christians were saying, you're to love yourself. Everyone in this room has heard this. You're to love yourself first. If you don't love yourself first, how can you love somebody else? Anybody ever hear that? If you don't love yourself first, Jesus said, and this is what they would do, Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself, as yourself and first that you're to love yourself. That's what I was taught. I was taught that in my psych classes. And yes, I went to Christian college and they were teaching that in my psych classes. You have to love yourself. One of my friends said, you know, people talk about loving others before they love themselves. One of my friends who's actually got his doctorate as a psychologist and two master's degrees, three master's degrees and a doctorate, this guy knows his stuff. And he told me that. It was one of my best friends. He said, Dave, you know, it's not joyous in Jesus, others and yourself. Joy is really yourself, others and Jesus. He reversed it. And then he explained to me why you have to be happy. If you're not happy, nobody else will be happy. So make yourself happy first. And didn't Jesus say, love your neighbor as yourself? So naturally I inferred that he must be commanding me to love myself. And I taught that. I taught that. That's got to be gospel. I wasn't studying the word of God. No, I'm to die to self. I'm supposed to die to self. Paul said, no man ever hated his own flesh, but he loves it, nourishes it and cherishes it. No, he's saying, the problem that we have is you love yourself too much with the intent. And somebody says, oh, that's not true. I hate myself because I'm ugly. No, no, no. If you hated yourself because you're ugly, you would be happy that you're ugly. Wouldn't you? You'd be happy. Because if you got somebody you don't like and they're ugly, you're happy they're ugly. Makes sense to me. Why would I be happy if they're handsome? No, I'm happy that they're ugly. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, you don't walk outside and say, when I look at the stars, the wonders of heaven, I can't help but think of how great I am. Right? I mean, that's just basic Bible. That's just basic Bible. You know, David was amazed. The psalmist, when he went out and he saw the wonders of God, he said, who's man that you should be mindful of him? When I consider the heavens, the works of the hand, I am small and you are great and I need you and you can transform me conforming me to be like the one I admire the most, Jesus Christ. So why am I placing myself first when Jesus, you said, the greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all. But see what happens, guys? It's in TV, it's in print. There are Christians who repeat it and it becomes theology. But is it scriptural? So be careful. So be careful. Test all things. See whether the Word of God says this. Become a Berean and study. Even when Paul spoke to the Bereans, the Bereans listened very carefully and then they went and checked the scriptures to see whether this apostle was telling them the truth. That's wisdom. That's what we're supposed to do. We're to be discerning. And so we'll be safe when we study in our taught God's Word and the best way to do that is a verse by verse study. In Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2, listen to what he says, You don't go to the unbeliever for counsel. Some unbelieving girlfriend. You know my boyfriend's pressuring me to have relations with him. What do you think? Oh, if you love him, you will. You don't go to unbelievers for advice. You just don't. It's not that they're going to try and entangle you. You don't go to unbelievers for advice. You just don't. It's not that they're going to try and entangle you. You don't go to unbelievers for advice. It's not that they're going to try and intentionally destroy you. I don't think they intentionally do. I really don't. The majority of people want to give you good advice. I'm not condemning them at all. But if I'm going to get direction in my spiritual life, I'm not going to go to a dead person. I'm not going to go to a casket with a dead body and say, Can you help me? They can't. They just lay there. They can't give me life. They don't have it. I have to go to the one who's alive. I have to get it through the Word of God. I get that through the Word of God and God's people. That's how it works. So be careful. So what are we to do? We need to stay in the Word of God. You want to be a vessel of honor? Stay in the Word of God. And when a minister preaches the Word of God, he ought to do so, not from his own strength, not from his own imagination, not from his own vision, but it should come forth as presenting the truth. Ezekiel 1125, where he said, I spoke to those in captivity of all the things the Lord had shown me. So it wasn't Ezekiel's ideas that he was given, it's what the Lord has shown me. And that's very important. Secondly, we voluntarily purge ourselves of the influence of carnal Christians. Listen, carnal Christians can be as destructive as false teachers. Be aware of that. You have people that you know, and I'm not judging them. Somebody here is thinking, you're such a judge. Doesn't the Bible say judge not? Anyway, be discerning. Be discerning. Be discerning. If you have a brother or sister, the Lord, who you love very much, love them. But if they're influencing you in the wrong direction, they're not your friends. They're your ministry. And there's a difference. They're not your friends. I was, Marie and I were talking the other day, I said, listen, friendship is standing shoulder to shoulder with somebody, looking in the same direction. When you have friends, you stand shoulder to shoulder and you're going in the same direction. But when you have somebody who's telling you to go in a direction different than the Lord, that's not your friend. That's someone who's undermining you. And when they do so in the name of Christ, I know there are people in this room here, if it hasn't happened in this church, it has happened in your life, where you've heard a Bible study you didn't like and you went and spoke to one of your friends about it and they said, oh, that's opinion. Just don't listen, that's just his opinion. And he's got problems in that area, obviously. And you say, yeah, yeah, that's true, because that sounds like it was those opinions. What that was was conviction of the Holy Spirit in your life telling you to change. You didn't want to, you went to somebody who said, you don't have to change and you agreed with them. And you didn't get right with the Lord the way God told you to. The way God was calling you to because somebody convinced you that it's just their judgmental heart. And that's how you thought. That happens, that happens all the time. Again, don't cease loving or ministering to those who are simply immature. But be careful, not to be influenced by those who claim to be mature, but are in a willing sin. Sometimes we're in such need for friendship that we make compromises. We say, well, we don't want to judge people. So what do we do? We make excuses for their carnality. Someone once said an immoral or doctrinally corrupt believer is more dangerous than a pagan atheist. That's because weak or immature believers may be deceived into thinking sinful behaviors acceptable to God and become influenced for evil. And 1 Corinthians 1533 Paul said, do not be misled, bad company corrupts good character. So if one of your friends isn't living a solid testimony, love him enough to let him know. And willing involvement with vessels of dishonor will affect the way you think and the way you live. And fellowship with defiled vessels develops tolerance for sin. And we shouldn't desire fellowship with those who don't love the Lord. We need, once again, to realize there are ministry. Now he said in verse 21, a vessel of honor is sanctified, useful, and prepared for every good work. Sanctified, that means they are set apart. They're set apart from sin, set apart to God. Like it says in Psalm 119 verse 29, keep me from deceitful ways. Be gracious to me through your law. Or like it says in 2 Corinthians 6 verse 17, come out from among them, be separate, says the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing, I will receive you. So we are to be prepared for every good work sanctified. Set apart, set apart from sin, set apart to God. And he says in verse 22, we flee. We flee youthful lusts. Now remember, Timothy was still a young man. He was obviously mature in his faith in his life, but he needed to die to the characteristics that are often associated with immaturity. What are these characteristics? Impatience, self-assertion, a love for arguments, partiality and judgment, a need for attention, emotionality, these are all aspects of being young. So youthful lusts are normally manifested in at least four basic ways. One, it's a lust for pleasure, strong desire for satisfaction of your physical appetite. Second, it's a desire for possessions. Third, it's pride, motivating you to reject correction or instruction. And fourth, it's a lust for power, this ungoverned desire to be first, to dominate, to control and have authority. These are youthful lusts. There's an individual in scripture that I have grown to admire. His name is Apollos. Apollos was mighty in scripture. He was eloquent. As a matter of fact, he was so gifted that people began to say, I prefer Apollos over Paul. But the scripture tells us, when you see him being referred to at first, that he was mighty, but he really didn't understand the whole counsel of what it means to be a Christian. And he was given this powerful message and he was explaining things that he had heard, but there was a couple, an older couple, Apollon and Priscilla, who were there listening to him as he was speaking. And they saw he was deficient in his understanding and they took him aside afterwards and they spoke to this young man and they gave him more thorough teaching concerning the things that he was preaching about and with humility, Apollos listened to them and he was able to be used mightily of the Lord. There are a lot of young people who are very, very energetic, very visionary, very cutting edge. They're eloquent, well-read, who are simply still young with little experience. That's a fact. And you have to be careful that you don't believe everything that good is said about you. Any more than you believe everything that's been said about you, that's bad. When you're young, though, you have a tendency of saying, when they compliment you, you have a tendency of saying, well, yeah, it's all the Lord that inside you're saying, it's me. That's me, you're right. You don't even know the half of it. I'm twice as good as you think I am, but, and you can actually do that. You really can. You can actually do that. I have had novice pastors, people who had just started ministry explained to me how to do ministry. I've been in the ministry a long time. And that doesn't mean they don't have insights that I can't learn from. Of course I can, you can learn. Listen, you can learn. But when they take it upon themselves to want to instruct you how to reach this generation, these are the things you ought to be doing. You know, I've been doing okay with the Holy Spirit up to this point. I suspect that he's got more things he wants to do in the future. I will listen because I want to have the humility to hear if God is speaking through this young man, but sometimes these young men will wanna, they have, there's one brother who came and spoke to me one time. He said, you know, I really think he gave me all what he thought and this and that, and good guy, I love him. And I smiled at him and said, really? And about two or three years later, he wrote me a letter. He said, Pastor David, I want to apologize. How arrogant of me to come and tell you the things I was saying to you. And I wrote back and I said, you know, I hate you. Shut up, you big face. You know, I said, hey bro, I said, that's part of growing up. That's part, well, that's what you flee. This quickness like that, to have this lust for all of these things. What do I do to combat this? He said, pursue a life of godliness, flee sin, and pursue righteousness, faith, and love for God and others. By God's word, we recognize these desires for what they are and we die to them. We pursue a life of righteousness. Notice with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Again, maintain godly fellowship with believers who have a desire to honor and love Jesus. You see, at this point in my life, I've come to one thing, I say one thing. I just don't have that much time to waste. I just don't. I don't have that much time to waste. You know, not to say that I've only got, you know, we'll put it this way. The road ahead is a lot shorter than the one behind. So I don't have time to waste. And I'm not going to. I want to make sure that what I do is going to make an impact in the kingdom. And so we do that. And then I'm going to have to close because it's time to close and I haven't even gotten. I said, oh boy, I said got more but I'm just going to run through this real quick because it's important. Verse 23, he adds a second admonition. Avoid foolish and ignorant disputes. The word foolish is literally moronic. And the ignorant, the word ignorant means uninstructed. Avoid moronic, uninstructed questionings and debates. Why? That kind of thing produces comparison and strife. And verse 24, servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all and patient. Quarrel speaks of having an angry fight. Believers are not to be pugnacious and hostile. You see, the fruit of false teachers, according to verses 14 and 16, the fruit is strife. So we avoid silly arguments. We seek to live at peace with one another. Now, to quarrel is not the same as arguing or persuading. To argue your case and attempt to persuade can be done with love and civility. And like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, 11, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men. So as believers, we present our faith openly but we don't do so with hostility. You see, like he says in verse 24, a servant of the Lord is to resemble his Lord. You see, Timothy, you're a servant and therefore you need to resemble your master. In Jesus, it's said of him in Matthew 12, 20, a bruised reed, he would not break. A smoldering wick, he would not snuff out. So you'd have humility and in verse 25, in humility, you correct those who were in opposition. You do so as a gentle teacher. Humility is a virtue that makes correction of error possible. And then he says, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. Repentance is a radical change of mind. It results in a radical change of behavior. In other words, they'll no longer be influenced by the false teachings and they'll experience truth in the deepest part. They will, according to verse 26, come to their senses, which is another way of saying return to soberness. The enemy has taken them, has caught them alive, used them to do his will. False teaching produces incredibly negative results, but Jesus sets you free. And Christians taken by false teaching can be set free by returning to the Lord in his word. You see, A.W. Tozer, they refer to him sometimes as a prophetic, in a way a prophetic man. He wrote in The Price of Neglect, he wrote, the law of the leader tells us who are preachers, tells us who are preachers, that it is better to cultivate our souls than our voices. It is better to polish our hearts than our pulpit manners. Though if the first has been done well and successfully, it may be profitable for us to do the second. We cannot take our people beyond where we ourselves have been, and it thus becomes vitally important that we be men of God in the last and highest sense of that term. We are to be men of God. There was a man by the name of Joseph Parker who said, if we as the church do not get back to spiritual visions, glimpses of heaven, and an awareness of a greater glory in life, we will lose our faith, our altar will become nothing but cold empty stone, never blessed with a visit from heaven, and this is the world's need today. The world needs a visit from heaven. And guys, God is gonna use you to bring that visit. Just be faithful, determine tonight, I'm gonna be a vessel for honor, and watch what God will do with your life one last thought and then we'll pray. If you would have told me at the age of 20, December 27th, 1970, if you'd have told me the journey that God had in store for me, I'd have thought you were smoking crack. I'd have said you're crazy. What are you on? Whatever it is, sell me some of it. If you'd have told me that. If you'd have told me that even in the morning, December 27th, if you'd have said, you know what God's gonna do with you? You're gonna lead your dad to Christ. You're gonna lead your mom to Christ. You're gonna lead your sister to Christ. You're gonna lead your other sister to Christ. You're gonna influence your brother to come to Christ. You're gonna teach a Bible study, meet a young woman, marry her. You're gonna go into ministry. You're gonna plant a church. You're gonna see thousands and thousands and thousands of people over the year getting saved. You're gonna go on national international trips. You're gonna be on the radio from California to New York and there are gonna be people who come to faith in Christ because of this one moment in your life as you gave your heart to Jesus. If you'd have told me that, I'd have said, you are crazy. But God does it. God does it. God does it. God does it. Never forget that. All you need to do is say, what you've done for him, Lord, do for me and do it more. Do it more. Because Elijah's assistant to Elijah got a double portion. Lord, I want not just what you've done, I want more. Why not? Why not me, Lord? Why not me?