Sermon Preached at the Old Schoolhouse 15/09/2013
Remembrance to Good Work
“2 Timothy 2:20-26”
As you know Cath and I have the privilege to be bringing up two lively boys Josh and Noah. Josh is now at the stage where he is beginning to ask the why questions. Yes I see a few knowing nods. Noah however is only really just getting to the stage where we can begin to train and discipline him on the small things. And as with Josh one of the first battles is stopping Noah throwing the food he doesn’t want off his high chair. The other day at dinner we were going through a little episode with Noah and telling him “No you don’t throw your food over the edge, rather give it to me if you don’t want it.” It was at this point that Josh piped up with “Why are you doing that Daddy?” and I came back with a quick reply “Because Noah is being naughty Josh” and Josh being at that stage came back with just as quick a reply “Why?” and after a moment's pause I replied “Because of original sin Josh” Which funnily enough seemed to satisfy Josh and to which he replied “Oh. O.K. Daddy.”
Those of us here that have had kids know the truth of the Bible’s teaching of original sin that we see in our kids. We have never had to teach them to be naughty. And as we train and discipline our children in the ways of the Lord the big tool at our disposal is repetition. The art of saying the same thing day after day reminding our kids no you don’t do that this is the way to go.
This section of the book of Timothy that we are looking at this morning runs from verse 14 through to verse 26. The first half you looked at last week I believe and the second half we will be looking at today.
Remind them of these things Paul says to Timothy in verse 14. You know we come here this morning not to have our ears tickled by something new, something profound but we come here this morning to be reminded of the truth of the Gospel. And if you are not a Christian here this morning, the gospel is not something out of this world but it is something that has been written in the very fabric of creation and hearing it should be like coming home. Because the gospel is what we are built for it completes us. The Gospel is the restoration of the relationship that we were all made for.
So Paul to this point in the letter has been encouraging Timothy in his suffering for the gospel and now turns his attention to his work as a minister of the gospel, to bring the gospel to continual remembrance before the people. Not to tell people of that which they never knew before but to put into mind that of which they do know.
So in this section of the letter we read in verse 14 Paul calls Timothy to bring to remembrance and warn them before God against quarrelling about words. And why is Paul so strong about this because says Paul the quarrelling over words is destructive to the things of God, leads to ungodliness and is a sign of the false teacher. It is infectious and can shake the faith of some.
Despite the presence of false teaching Paul says in v19 God’s solid foundation stands firm and is seal with two messages.
The first is for our comfort:
“The Lord knows those who are his.”
Despite the plague of false teachers in our time, despite all the destructive talk and quarrelling those who are saved by the Lord have a firm foundation and he owns them and he will never lose them.
The second is for our duty:
“Everyone who confesses the Name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness”
Those of us who are Christians and name Jesus as Lord of our lives we must be conscious of our duty to turn away from wickedness.
And it is to this second point of our duty that Paul now expounds in verses 20-26 that we might better understand three things:
The True Church
The True Faith
The True Corruption
So first The True church. Here Paul gives us an insight into exactly how we should view the church. Think of it as a large house Paul tells us and think of the people who make up the church as the items that we find within the house the bowls the dishes the jugs and cups.
Paul makes a distinction between two types of items. The first set is the items of gold and silver. Think of that fine china tea set you keep in the glass cabinet or the set of crystal glasses you keep in case the queen ever came round for tea. And second set is the items of wood and clay. Think of the chewed plastic knives and fork you keep in the back of the cupboard for when young kids come round or that battered cardboard box you keep all those bits and bobs in you don’t quite not what to do with shoved in the attic. One set for honourable use and the other for dishonorable use.
Now it could be easy to mistake that Paul here is talking about those inside and outside the church, or our life before we met Jesus and after. But as we look at the context we see that Paul here is talking about the visible church. Now what I mean by the visible church is those who confess the name of the Lord as we read in v19. Those who claim to be christians. Those people who fill the churches in scotland every Sunday, or even those who go less regularly, once or twice a year even but still confess the name of the Lord. This is what I mean by the visible church.
And we can see here that Paul is saying that the visible church is made up of two different types of people. Those the Lord has set aside for noble purpose or honourable and those the Lord has set aside for ignoble or dishonourable use.
The first set of people we can class as the invisible church, the elect of God those that as we read in v19 “The Lord knows those who are his” and “those who turn away from wickedness” and the second set Paul warns us about are those who quarrel, those who indulge in godless chatter, those who have wandered away from the truth like Hymenaeus and Philetus that Paul mentions in v17.
These same two sets of people that can be distinguished within the visible church are the same two sets of people that we see described elsewhere in the Bible. Here they are described as the two different types of household articles the gold and silver verse the wood and clay. In Matthew 13:12 it is the wheat and the chaff. In Matthew 25:31 it is the sheep and the goats. In Matthew 13:24 It the wheat and the weeds growing together. In Matthew 7:17 its the good tree producing good fruit and the bad tree producing bad fruit. In Matthew 7:24 the house built on the sand and the house built on the rock. In fact the whole sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is contrasting the difference between these two types of people. Both looking the same on the outside but on the inside completely different.
But the interesting point that comes out each time we see these two types of people described and likewise here in our text is that the two exist side by side. The wheat and the weeds grow together, the sheep and the goats graze together, the gold and the wooden articles are together in the one household. The Lord in his sovereign plan has the two types of people existing together in the visible church. It is only on judgement day that the two will be separated the sheep to eternal life and the goats to eternal destruction.
So the question that reads from the text is this which are you. If you confess the name of the Lord what type of fruit are you bearing? In Philippians 2:12 Paul encourages us “In obedience to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” Here in v19 we see that one aspect of working out our faith and showing it to be genuine is to turn away from wickedness. The context of this wickedness in the passage as a whole is the striving after words, the corrupt opinions, the spiralling into ungodliness.
This is the truth of the church there are genuine believers and there are false teachers and each confess faith each looking the same on the outside. But as we learn from the book of James. Faith without works is dead. If we are not turning away from wickedness, not cleansing ourselves, setting ourselves apart as holy then we will not be useful to the Master for good work but only for dishonour.
This brings us onto our second point the true faith. Paul calls us to flee the evil desires of youth. Basically grow up, mature Paul is telling us, put childish ways behind us and live in the freedom that the Lord has given to us. Do not put ourselves back under the bondage of the sinful ways that we have been set free from when we gave our lives to Jesus.
It is so easy for us to slip back into childish ways, the evil desires of youth. One of the big areas of bringing up children is moving them from a position of where everything is about me, me, me through to coming to know Jesus and becoming servant hearted in maturity considering other first above ourselves.
Now as we grow older these things that we should be fleeing from are not as obviously displayed. You will not normally see an adult on the floor in a supermarket having a tantrum or whining to get there own way. But its not because we don’t do it but we have learnt rather sneakier ways of doing it, under cover, not so obvious. We cut people off, we look down our noses at people, we make things difficult, we withhold, we threaten we are altogether more sophisticated about it but it all boils down to the same thing the evil desires of youth.
Remind them Paul says to Timothy. Its not because they don’t know that they shouldn’t be acting this way but they need reminding to stop it.
Stop condemning people on how they look or how they dress. Stop condemning people for their sins. Stop taking offense. Stop threatening people from a position of power with your money. Stop guilt tripping people into doing what you want. Stop giving the silent treatment, bullying or nagging. Stop your foolish talk looking to stir up trouble, causing quarrels. In conclusion stop doing what breaks down, what in the end puts people down and raises you up.
The gospel, the new life of a Christian is about building, up restoring the brokenness of sin.
There is one solution that can put all this immaturity right Paul says and it is this. Pursue righteousness that is setting things straight and true. Pursue faith that is living life trusting in the promises of God. Pursue love that is a life poured out for the good of others. Pursue peace that is a restoration of the fullness of the life lived for God’s glory and our joy. But warns Paul don’t do it alone and don’t try and do it non-christians or dead christians and think it will succeed because they have a completely different agenda. Paul says pursue these things along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Paul is not saying remove yourself from those who don’t profess to be christians or those in the church teaching false doctrine. Jesus himself said that it is right the the wheat grows up with the weeds, that is the way it should be. The church is not some squeaky clean social club for got it together people. But a battlefield hospital full of the sick and the hurting realities of life.
The true faith lived out in pursuit of holiness is that we are prepared for the good works that the master has for us to do. And what is that? We read it is v24. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful, gently instructing those who oppose the truth. That is the good work that we are called to do and what is the fruit of this?
The fruit is that those whom the Lord has called, those that are his sheep, his elect, they will hear his voice and God will grant them repentance and lead them to the knowledge of the truth. They will become Christians. The fruit of good works is salvation for the invisible church and it is our privilege that we can be a part of reaping a harvest. This is the will of God.
But finally the third point is The True Corruption. We read in v26 where people are rescued from. They are rescued from the trap of the devil, they are rescued from being captive to his will.
This is the true corruption the reality of the evil desires of youth, the quarrelling, the godless chatter is that in doing these things we are doing the devil’s will. We are breaking down where we should be building up. We are destroying the faith of others where we should be shoring it up. We are spreading false teaching where we should be preaching the truth.
This is the reality of corruption, the reality of immaturity in faith.
If you are not a Christian this morning maybe take time to consider what is the fruit of a life lived in opposition to God. It is a life lived for self just like that of a child causing division and breaks in relationships. It is a life that is actually lived captive to the devil’s will. The only way to break the cycle is to come to Jesus in repentance that you might come to a knowledge of the truth. I would encourage you this morning to not to leave here until you have made that decision for yourself. Come and speak to me afterwards or to someone who you came with.
For us Christians this morning this is a sobering message and a remembrance to good work. We know what our comfort is that the Lord’s knows who are his and we know what our duty is that we turn away from wickedness. Let us consider the true church and on which side we sit. Have we cleansed ourself that we might be an instrument holy and set apart, useful to the master for any good work. Let us consider the true Faith that it is not a case of trying harder to turn from sin but instead to grow in maturity through pursuit of all that is righteous and good. Do we understand the true corruption that by pursuing the evil desires of youth, living for the self we are putting ourselves back under the slavery of sin and doing the will of the devil.
Let us truly take to heart Paul’s remembrance to good work.
Let us pray together.
